What’s up, everyone? Here we are, finishing the day up $900, which is okay. I mean, it’s kind of a slow day, but 900 is good, and that puts me up about $49,000 this month, so that’s a great July.

 

Now, if I flashback to July of 2017, we’ll look at, we’ll compare month over month during a recap, but I want to say July 2017 was less than $10,000. It was not an impressive month. July 2016 was, I want to say 30,000. It’s the ebb and the flow, but hey, I’m loving it. $50,000 month. Close enough. That feels pretty good.

Going to try to keep it going. Hopefully we see this momentum carry into the month of August, and then really fall the winds at my back because I’m already going to have a great profit cushion from the first nine months of the year, and typically, October, November, and December are really strong. Right now, it’s just try to keep up pace in August and September, and then just coast into the New Year.

Anyways, we’ll break it all down in today’s Mid-Day Market Recap. Any questions, any comments, leave them below. We’ll come through and answer them later. If you enjoy these videos, make sure you subscribe and check the little bell so you get the auto alerts any time I come on and do a live broadcast. Enjoy the recap, and I’ll see you guys first thing tomorrow morning.

All right, everyone, so we’re going to go over the trades from today, but before we do, had a little question about, “Jeez, Ross. You make it look so easy.” The reality is, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and we practice, anything can be easy. I was reminded of this video of cycling with Ross, of course, on our YouTube channel where I ride my bike backwards. On the surface, you would think, “Jeez, this is really hard to do,” but it’s actually very easy. One you learn, you got it, and from there, well, it’s just staying sharp, practice. Sit on the handle bars, start pedaling, and off I go.

If trading ever stops working out for me, the good news is that I’ve got a great opportunity to work in the circus, and it’ll start with my cycling skills, but I’m sure it’ll continue on to something else.

Anyways, that’s the story of making things look easy. It’s just practice. That’s really all it is. It’s not a bit secret. Someone, there’s a good quote. I can’t remember who said it, but he said that “people say that I’m lucky, and the funny thing about luck is that the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

I think that’s kind of the same with trading. Yeah, obviously, I’ve been pretty successful, finishing the month here up $49,010.57. That’s a great month. I mean, it really is fantastic. It’s not luck. It may seem like it looks easy, and that’s just because I’ve been doing it for a while, and it just does become second nature at a certain point.

Today, finishing up $979. It’s not a home-run type of day. It’s a green day, but the last week or so has been a little bit tricky for me. I’m going to show you guys my Traderview report here. This is the month of July minus today. I won’t be able to upload today until tomorrow. So … Oops. Let me just go forward. So here we have … Oops. Let me just go July 1st. All right, so, recent … All right, so here’s the last 30 days. This is the month of July. Couple of red days. Four, actually, five red days. This was a red day. I was down $32. Five red days, 16 green days for the month, and I’m going to be finishing just under my all-time high of the month, which was, I guess just around $50,000. I actually thought it was a little more than that, but I think I was under-calculating my commissions.

Anyways, I had a red day on, what was it, Thursday, so that knocked me down a little bit, and a couple days bouncing back, now three green days in a row, which is great, but still a little bit below the highs before these two red days back to back.

That’s the high level. The detailed is my accuracy this month in the 60s and a little below the 70% target, but not bad. Profit/loss ratio, pretty much 1:1. Average winning trade $639, average loser $656. Biggest winner, 10,000, biggest loser, 6,800. Couple of the high-level stats. Again, this doesn’t include my trades from today, but it gives you a little bit of a sense of where I’m at. Shorter hold times this month, for sure. Shorter than average.

We had some opportunities, decent opportunities, but we didn’t see the level of follow-through that we were seeing in the earlier part of the year. If I look at … Let’s see. Calendar. Wait, how do I go to this? Detail. This is year-to-date. Right around $360,000 year to date. Profit/loss ratio about 1:1, average winner’s 1,100, average loser’s 1,000, 65% accuracy. I guess that’s about average. Biggest winner, 24,000, biggest loser, 10,000. I almost had the biggest loser of the year this month. I was only $500 off. Oh, no. Sorry. I was confused now, the biggest winner. Yeah, so that actually is quite a bit bigger. Biggest loser this month is 6,800 I think it was.

In any case, that’s where I’m sitting right now. If we go back to 2017, you’ll see I’m at right around 700,000. I crossed over and then dipped back below the 700,000 mark. I started with $583. From $583 to 700K, 67% accuracy, 1:1 profit/loss ratio, biggest winner, 31,000, biggest loser, 12,000. Some pretty crazy metrics there. Performance by day of the week, I guess Wednesdays are the best, but they’re all pretty good. Fridays are the slowest.

This is one of those things that I really think it’s good for you guys at the end of each month to go back and review your metrics. One of the things … For me, when I talk about my turning point, being that red day, a miracle disguise is a big red day, the reality is that, on that day, I’ve lost $5,000, and I was sitting there thinking, “Okay, I’ve gotta figure this out. I can’t keep doing what I’m doing.”

I started pouring all of my trading data. I’ve been really meticulously about keeping records of all my trades, and even now, I still have my trade doc here, although this isn’t really as accurate because now, sometimes I’ll just put, if I took three or four trades, I’ll just do one line item. I’m not as detailed on this as I was years ago, but I’m online 10,000, so that’s 10,680-plus trades of historical data. I can go through here, and I can search all my averages: my average winners, my average losers, my average price.

What I did on the day when I lost $5,000 and I was feeling defeated is I went back and I looked at all my metrics, and what I did was I sorted by biggest winner to biggest loser. I asked myself, “What do all the big winners have in common?” What I realized was that all of those big winners were on stocks that were up more than 20% on the day. That’s when I realized that every single day, there’s a stock that moves 20-30%, and so today is no exception. Today we had JMU. This one on our pre-market watch list was actually up 900%. That’s because it was a reverse split. Reverse splits don’t exactly count there, but it was still up quite a bit, so $1,200 of profit on JMU.

Let’s see. Just go back here to AM. There we go. Let’s see, ABIO up 48%. NAKD, N-A-K-D, up 46%. HYRE up 23%. Amex up 20%. Again, every single day, there are stocks that move 20-30%. These are the stocks that you want to be trading if you’re a day trader. You don’t want to trade stocks like Sprint that go sideways because this is not volatility. The stock has moved 7 cents today. That’s not enough opportunity. We don’t trade stocks like Sirius Satellite Radio because they don’t move. They’re basically sideways. It’s moved 10 cents today.

We would trade stocks like, well, HMNY. This stock miraculously went from 80 cents to $2, and then all the way back to 50 cents. Talk about volatility. That is volatility, from 200% up on the day to down, what is it down now, down 37%. I mean, it’s just crazy, but the reality is, with that level of volatility is an opportunity. That’s what we look for as active day traders.

Realizing that there were stocks every single day that makes these types of moves, and those were the ones I was profitable on, I set a rule for the rest of August that I would be paper trading a strategy of only trading those big movers. That was my turning point.

I realize under all of that data, under all of those thousands and thousands of trades, I actually was a profitable trader when I only traded this small strategy. When I was trading a little bit of everything, I was losing money, but once I took out, I took out all the times where I would trade breaking news, and I took out all the stocks over $20, and then I took out all the stocks that were less than up 5% on the day. When I started taking stuff out, taking stuff out, taking stuff out, what I was left with was this little diamond, and that’s the strategy that I’m still trading today. That’s the strategy that’s given me $360,000 of profit so far this year.

I put in a wire request for $50,000 today, and I’m paying myself for the month of July. $50,000 coming out. I’ll save, put aside half of that for taxes and make sure I’m covered there, but the rest is free to spend, so $25,000. It’s a solid month.

The stocks today, JMU, this one, it was on our scanners. I got in for the red to green move thinking it would show a little bit more strength. You can see on this one that it started to curl up right here. As it curled up, I got in at 2.85. It ended up halting at 2.88. It got halted pretty early on. It popped up to a high of $3.50 and then it came all the back down. I sold as it came back down, made only $1,200. Really wasn’t a very good trade. It didn’t break the pre-market high of 3.80, so it was sort of disappointing there.

ALTC, this one was a surprise move. I wasn’t expecting … Sorry, ATLC. This one was a surprise move. I wasn’t really expecting this opportunity, but it was doing a really nice little flag right here just in the first 10 minutes or so right in this area, so I bought in for the break of 3.30, high of day. It pops up to 3.80. That’s 50 cents. That’s a nearly 20% move. 20%. Right there is an opportunity.

Now, on that, I actually had 12,500 shares. 12,500 shares at an average of 3.30. I was up $6,000 on that stock, and as it was consolidating right here, I was ready to potentially add another 5,000 shares and go up to 17,000 shares. If I had 17,000 shares at an average price of 3.40, and it broke over $4 and squeezed up to 4.20, that right there could have been a $10,000 winner. This had potential to be a big winner.

Now, in the middle of the trade, I said to myself, “You know what, Ross? It’s the end of the month. You’ve had a great month. Set your stop at break-even, and let’s hold this and see what it can do because this just might have the potential to be a big winner.”

I held at 12,500 shares, and then as it started to come down, I had to stop out, which was basically break-even. This was like 4 cents of profit per share. I got a small profit on it and stopped out the rest actually for a loss, and that was fine. I was risking at that point making only 500 with an upside potential of it breaking over 4 and being a $10,000 winner. That was a good risk reward I think on that one. This is just one of those times it didn’t work. That’s ALTC.

HMNY. It’s so funny, it came out with news, and all of a sudden it spikes up and gets halted. It resumes higher, and I get in. I try to buy 5,000 shares of 1.50. I don’t get filled. I add 2,500 shares of 1.70. It gets halted again. It pops up to $2. I’m holding it, and then it suddenly drops to 1.50, and I said, “No, no, no.” I thought I was going to get caught in a halt going back down. I press the sell button, and I got filled before it halted. It then resumed and kept going down. On that one, I got a little bit faked out, but I only lost 120 bucks, so it’s not that big of a deal. It just didn’t really hold up super well.

Then the last one was CBLI, $700 loss on that. I jumped in … Oh, my gosh. I didn’t even see that candle. Yikes. That’s pretty ugly. That one right there is not pretty. I got in at $3. It popped up to a high of 3.16, and then I stopped out as it came back out to 2.90 and 2.85. It didn’t end up working out very well, and then it looks like at 10:39, it did a really ugly drop, 25,000 shares. That, to me, looks like a market order.

You can see how it just went from … It flushed down, and then popped right back up. What the market makers like to do is when you press an order to sell a really big block like 20,000 shares, a lot of times, they just move out of the way. They let the stock drop, and then once you’ve sold at the bottom, it comes right back up. That’s why we don’t use market orders. You see this happen all the time. It’s not fun at all.

Basically, today, I was up I guess as much as 1,800 bucks or $2,000 before HMNY and CBLI, but I couldn’t hold on to all of those profits. I had to give a little bit back, and that’s okay. Just paying my dues, I suppose.

A green day, $979. I’m happy with that. Got about 126,000 in the account today. Tomorrow, I’ll have about 75,000 in the account. Realistically, 75,000 is more than enough. A stock like ALTC I took 12,000 shares of. ATLC, sorry. 12,000 shares of this at $3. This is 100% cash. I can’t use margin, but that means 10,000 shares is $30,000. 20,000 shares will be $60,000, so even with $75,000 in my account, I can still take 20,000 shares of a $3 stock, even if I can’t use my margin.

I’m getting to a point where I really don’t need this much money in the account. If I see a stock like AWX that’s up at $15, I wouldn’t be able to take 10,000 shares of it, but you know what, that’s probably for the best. I have enough money to trade aggressively stocks under $10, and when they get a little more expensive, I’m not going to be able to be as aggressive, and I think that’s actually a good thing.

Anyways, that’s about it for me here today, finishing up the month with another green day, but no doubt the last week or so has been choppy. I’m just hoping that we see continued momentum.

AWX, yeah, this one, let’s see, now back at $3.61. We were talking yesterday about the Form 3 filing that we saw on, what day was it, it was on Friday for AWX. Let’s see. I’ll just bring this up here. Sec.com, we had the Form 3 filing on AWX, so they bought, do, do, do, do, 1.9 million shares, and this was on the 27th. They bought 1.9 million shares on the 27th, and then we already got a Form 4 that came out yesterday. This Form 4 shows that they sold 190,000 shares. They sold about 10% of their position but they sold it on Friday. They sold it, it must’ve been after-hours Friday when it hit 15.50. They already sold 192,000 shares on Friday right up here at 15.50 average.

We don’t have anything filed for the price action yesterday, but I would keep your eyes peeled because it wouldn’t surprise me if we see something filed either today or tomorrow for exits yesterday because that’s obviously, there was huge imbalance to the sell yesterday as you can see on the chart. This was very weak. 5.7 million shares of volume, but straight down. I mean, not even a bounce. I mean, it just was down, and now it’s back at $3.

I mean, if they’re still holding, then I don’t know. I don’t see how it could be a winner, but I guess, it doesn’t say. The thing that the Form 3s don’t say is they don’t say the average cost. It doesn’t show what price that got in that, but it says it was filed on the 27th, so if they bought on the 27th, the low of day on the 27th was $5.50. It’s at 3.50 now. That would be certainly red versus an entry on the 27th. I would think that we’ll probably see another Form 4 maybe today or tomorrow, but who knows. I guess it’s anyone’s guess, but I’d keep an eye out for it.

Now, the question is, which one is going to be next. We had that crazy move on GBR. I made some good money on that. That was at the beginning of the month as we went from 1.50 up to a high of $12, and then this was the day that they sold their shares. Mint bought a million shares on, I think it was the 29th, and then listed on the Form 4, they sold it on the 3rd. Based on the pattern, AWX would, it would look like this would be the day of the exit, but it’s not confirmed yet.

Again, the question is, which one will be next? I think traders are going to be asking this on every stock that starts to pop up, and see what happens. It clearly shows there’s opportunity on the front side for momentum, but be careful, but don’t buy too high because the downside has been pretty brutal.

I don’t know of anyone that had shares available to borrow to short this, so I’m not sure if a lot of people really were able to make money on the short side, but I don’t know. That part I don’t know about, but there’s definitely a pattern here.

I think the thing to remember is that there’s opportunity on both sides. Whether you’re a long trader or a short trader, this is volatility. Volatility creates opportunity. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from, but these last two, this month that were really big were both, they both had the same catalyst of Mint Broker International, the owner of SureTrader buying this really large position.

Traders are going to be watching to see which one’s next and if this pattern is going to continue in August. The first one was the beginning of July, the second one was here at the end of July. I don’t know. There were a couple weeks in between GBR and AWX.

I guess that’s the question, but in the meantime, each morning will be the same routine for me, looking at the Gap Scanners, looking to see if something looks good and trying to capture a little bit of profit. If I can make my $500-$1,000 a day, I’m happy with that, and if I can get some more big green days where I do 5,000 or 10,000 a couple of days like that each month go a long ways. It’s kind of like get the big days when you can, and then all the days in between, just manage risk, trade smart, and try not to give back too much profit.

That’s it for me. We’ll be back at it first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully we’ll see a couple of stocks on the scanner that look good, and we’ll be able to make some money and start August off to a nice, strong start. That’s the game plan. I’ll see you all back here tomorrow morning 9:00, 9:15 for Pre-Market Analysis. See you in the morning.