Why Having A Job Makes You A BETTER Stock Trader

I think having a job is really important. I think, you know, if trading is your full-time activity, that's like your lifeline now and you started making very irrational decisions. So, I think it's very important to have your have a have a stable job and then decide, you know, how much money you're willing to risk um and just Yeah. full port, whatever. >> And by full port, you mean go all in. >> All in. Yes. Because then you're like fully invested, you're fully concentrated, you're tracking every movement. For me, like if you're right and you were only in like 5%, like you were right. That's really incredible. But you only got to gain only like from a little bit from there. Even if I had like $20 in the stock, I'm I'm just obsessed with it. But if you're wrong, I mean, then you only lose, you know, >> true. But if you're But when you're raw, you could you could sell. So here's here's my general take on it. My unsolicited two cents is that I think for a specific person, this strategy is probably better. But I would also hesitate at promoting something like this widespread because I know a lot of people are going to get absolutely rinsed. Do I think the average person listening to this right now is going to be able to do the right amount of due diligence, have, you know, like assess their own risk profile well enough to actually capitalize on this? I don't think so. But for the specific person, I actually think that this makes a lot of sense. I know I get a lot of like flak for always buying and then the stock goes down. >> Oh, tell them about your recent one, Jack. >> Yeah. So, like I bought a bunch of Bloom Energy like a week ago and then it goes down to like 230, but I also bought at 230 and so now it's like kind of like going back up a little bit. I bought some call options, you know, sold some weekly puts and stuff like that. But this all to say, every single individual stock I have ever picked has outperformed every index fund I've ever invested in. And so I'm like, if I had just gone in heavier, like I would, you know, I'd put like $2,000 into an individual stock while I have like a few hundred thousand index fun. >> Very funny is Jack has selectively forgotten 2020 and 2021. >> Well, even if you account for that, I'm probably up still about equal with my individual and ETFs. But 2020 and 2021, I got margin called on Palunteer and Robin Hood and I was forced to sell at 10, but I was buying them at 15 and 20 and 30 bucks. And now they've skyrocketed. And so for me, I was like getting margin called and I was like, I have the cash in my high yield savings account, but like this is like my fun money. I'm not even going to like feed into it. >> I should have, but still the stocks that I had picked at that time >> were the correct stocks that were going to end up doing really well. >> Oh, 100%. I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail. Maybe the framing is is is better positioned to uh for most people. You had a fund account, right? And you were technically all in high-risisk stocks or individual stocks in your fund account, right? So, like I know people make fun of me online all the time. They're like, "Oh, Kevin's all in these random stocks, uh, even though he has like $1 million in index funds." Like, I'm very transparent about this. Like, it's in my ex bio, right? Like, my net worth is, you know, 11.6 million and my all-in challenge account is at 52K right now. Like, people could do the math, right? Uh I whatever you know people are comfortable with put that aside make a whole new account for that and just go all in all all in there. >> But now if you say you've somehow bought some of these stocks with like an hour of research let's just say where does it intersect between gambling and investing because it just seems like there's an element of randomness that goes into all of this where >> it might lean into gambling a little bit. >> To me gambling can go to zero, right? gambling can go to zero overnight out of your control. And again, with most stocks, right, uh you're not going to go to zero overnight. And so that's that's where I draw the line between gambling and trading. >> Well, couldn't you say also with a slot machine, you're not going to go to zero every spin. If you do dollar spins, you're going to lose on average, but you could also just as easily stop at 80 bucks. >> Yes, unless you just put it all on one spin or table on one trade. I mean, I'm also just a very simple person, right? Like I I can only really track like one or two stocks at a time, right? Like I think you know you mentioned selling call options, whatever. Like I've never sold an option. I'm a very simple person. Like I believe in a stock. I think this is a good price. I think it's going to go up in the next couple days, couple weeks. Like like like I think that is actually rather promotable to a general audience. Like just simplify. You don't have to get into all these kind of crazy kind of things and deal with margin trying to make more money. Just like find a good stock that you think is a good price. It's got a good story. You think it's going to go up 5 10% next week. Sell. Buy low, sell high, and then find another stock. What are some of the red flags that stop you from investing into a company >> recently? Uh if the wrong type of promoters are talking about it, right? Like uh there's a lot of you know shady people on X. A lot of shady things happening. Um people are promoting penny stocks and and and you know these people have a is they're anonymous and they're not transparent. Like I'm super transparent. Like I've been actually I was thinking about it. I've been sharing every single trade I've made since 2020. Like either on Reddit or on After Hour or on X now. Like I'm extremely transparent about when I buy and when I sell. And other people, they'll talk about like when they buy, but they'll never talk about when they sell or they're sharing, you know, obviously Photoshop screenshots or screenshots they took for someone else's uh someone else on their Discord. Uh and so if you know I I post video trade receipts and so I I I well that's the biggest red flag. Like recently there is a stock that's come across my radar. Uh people keep DMing it to me. That's another red flag. If someone ever DMs me like, "Hey, you should check this out." I'm like automatically like, "No, you know, like you probably have some ulterior motive." >> How often do you see pump and dumps? Back in the day, I saw it quite off and I think the algorithm has done a much better job of like filtered that kind of stuff out or maybe I just like I I just don't care about that stuff, right? Uh if you know, if it's a sub billion dollar market cap, that's automatically like a pretty much like a orange flag for me. >> Uh because that's easy to manipulate. Yeah. >> And how do you know when to sell? I sell a stock uh or swing trade a stock, right? either when uh the thesis has been validated uh invalidated or I find a a sexier play uh and so you know if a stock like for example I'm I'm playing earnings right uh and earnings was good it popped 26% which was my recent trade on on paying uh perfect it was earnings play decis validated sell right uh or other times I'm just holding a stock right kind I'm just waiting for a catalyst to happen uh maybe it's just like bobbing you know sideways for a little bit and I find something else that's like more exciting right, that has like a news coming up next week or they just launched partnership. I'm like, "Okay, maybe I'll swing to there and then swing back." That's that's actually that's how I missed out on GameStop. >> Tell us about that. What happened to GameStop? >> Yeah, so I was one of the earliest whales on GameStop. I put in $1.3 million into GameStop in October of 2020. Okay. And my cost of business was around $13 a share back then. >> And uh I held until December of 2020. So, I missed the squeeze by a month. >> How much would you have made? >> Oh my god. I uh I believe $100 would have been $120 would have been 10 million. So, it went up to $420. Uh so, probably around 30 to 40 million if I if I held to the top of the squeeze, >> you would have 40xed. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> How often do you think about that? >> I don't think about that at all. >> Okay. >> During those days, I was ecstatic cuz we were right. you know, the the the the short squeeze and and and all that kind of stuff. Like the thesis was right. I was celebrating. I was dancing it alongside, you know, Roing Kitty every day. You know, it's funny. I actually bought GameStop when it was $3 and something a share. I put $5,000 into it because I saw it on Wall Street Bets >> and I just thought, "This sounds funny. I'm just going to do it." And I bought it. I completely forgot about it. And then the whole GameStop stuff happened and I sold. I think it was right after Robin Hood disabled the trading and I was like, "Oh man, this is going to kill the momentum and immediately it started falling and then I remember I think I went to you and I'm like, "Dude, Jack, should I sell?" And it had turned into over like 150 grand I think at the time from a $5,000 investment. And I sold and I was so happy that I didn't quite get the peak >> but to be able to get that price for that I mean that was a Hail Mary just for fun. >> Uh profit is profit profit is profit. >> So why do so many people miss these signals? >> I don't know. You know psychologically I I I've always been curious why some people get get married to the stock. That's another one of my principles like never get married to a stock, right? Like there are people who are just they they they made their money on Tesla, they made their money on Bitcoin, uh now with memory stocks, right? Like SanDisk and MU and they're just like obsessed with it or holding about that's all they talk about. Uh and I I don't get it. You know, if you're investor, you don't care about the short-term movements at all and and and you'll just kind of, you know, ride it for 10, 20, 30 years. If you're thinking about the stock, you're essentially thinking like, should I sell, right? And so you're think so like you should be okay with selling. >> What would you say are the the shortcomings that a lot of investors fall into? Now most people think forming an LLC is just about filling out one form and calling it a day. But there's a lot more to it than that. And if you skip the rest, your LLC isn't really set up the way it needs to be. That is why we have partnered with Northwest registered agent. For $39 plus state fees, Northwest handles the state filing and make sure you have everything you actually need. Your operating agreement, membership certificates, and banking resolutions. 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Like you could play this game for a very long time as long as you're responsible and take, you know, take profit and and minimize your your your losses, right? like if you're up 20 you're up 20% uh maybe take some more risk. If you're down 20% maybe play a little more conservatively or you know add money back to it. Uh I think when people go on margin when people go on full tilt right and trying to make that gain back as as much as possible that's when they lose it all. >> And so what do you think about Chris Camilo? I'm sure you're very familiar with who he is. He fully endorses margin. And if anything he looked at my portfolio he's like if I could critique anything I think you should have a little bit more margin. I mean that's extreme conviction. Uh I I wonder if he has always had that view especially when he was just starting out or that's now when he has more more of a cushion right to maybe take a blow for from margin. I mean you have to be patient right like this is this is also like a a patient man's game in order to uh be happy with you know 20% swings 20% swings versus like oh it could have been 40% or something like that. Uh, I mean, I think the math is like you only need like four 20% swings for a double, right? I think that's very possible if you like find a good stocks. >> I'm curious by winning a million dollars in the stock market in one day and then losing a million dollars the following day, what does this do to your mental like how does this affect your your nights when you're trying to sleep or just like the overall gravity of daily existence? To be honest, it happened so fast, it didn't quite register, you know and >> but the million that you had made had not quite settled yet. >> Exactly. >> And so it didn't feel like your net worth increased by a million. >> I think also psychologically it's very different than losing a million, right, first uh or or from your cost basis, right? Like I gained a million and then it disappeared, right? Uh so I think that that that's that's why I I also prioritize like entry price a lot. That's again back to like the my don't chase rule, right? Like if you bought a stock and it went up 20% and then went back down 20%, that's that you could hold that a lot better psychologically than if you bought something at the top and just dropped the next day.