All right everyone. So we're going to break down the trades for today: finishing the week on Friday with a green day that was very important after two consecutive red days, biggest red day of the year on Wednesday with my biggest loss of the year on Wednesday a $10,000 loss which grand scheme of things is not bad, but still it. it is the biggest of the year. Uh, yesterday I finished down about 1700.

that was not great either. and today I started with $400 loser and I was like Man I said out loud I was like it would be really nice not to start the day with a loser because starting the day with a loser it feels like I'm just I'm off to a bad start. It's like tripping right out of the starting Gates and it's like man I would really like to start over, but this has just kind of been the way it's been now. Fortunately, the first trade only a $500 loss manageable.

Not anywhere close to my Max loss. a trade that I got in, got stopped out on and of course not a live stop because it was pre-market but bailed out on it and and that's okay, it's fine, it's just that there weren't a lot more opportunities to recoup that loss now. I did end up recouping it, but you know. What was interesting today was that we had these Spaxs, these special acquisition companies that basically gapped up 200, 300, 400, 500% on like a, shares of volume, 2,000 shares of volume and then just sold off all morning.

Now a couple of them put in a little bounce off the low maybe short covering. but honestly, I I'm It's hard for me to kind of understand exactly how a stock gaps up 400% on only 2,000 shares with no news and I feel like this is hinting at something with high frequency trading algorithms or something with certain institutional players out there that there's some motivation to push these up. And then we see the the fade back down and it's like it's creates liquidity that allows selling, right? So I don't know if they're trying to game Alos or what's going on, but it was a little shady and I'll show you. um, a couple of examples of that here for today.

So let's see. Um, so the first one this morning. Well look, Smap Smap this stock. I mean this.

It's a recent special acquisition company and this stock goes all the way up pre-market to $52 $52 a share. But the thing is, it opened. If we look at this basically. Yesterday it was at $8 and then there were 422 shares of volume at 15 and then all of a sudden there's 5,000 shares of volume at 39 and then another 6,000 shares of volume at $50 a share and then it hits 52 and starts selling.

So basically What's the total volume on this today. The total volume on it today as of right now is, um, it's 176,000 shares and so you know, Basically the majority of The volume has been selling selling selling. It's just been the steady selling all the way back to 10. Let's look at another one.

Let's look at um ATK and this is the one that I ended up trading on the deadcat bounds. but um ATK This one gaps up. This one literally gapped on 2 38 shares of volume. It gapped from yesterday $10 to a high of $990 a share on 2,000 shares.

So that doesn't you know? Obviously that's almost like a a error in in the market. like an anomaly. I Mean it's it's one thing for a stock to squeeze up 100 200% on news and it's moving higher. even if it's on light volume.

it's there's news. But for a stock just to to be at $8 and then the next day to open at 90. So you know what this made me think of. Um, there's a book on um, high frequency trading algorithms that I read um a couple years ago that interesting.

it's called Dark pools and I might have it in my H no I think I I might have it up on the Shelf over there Anyways, doesn't matter. Um, you could check it out if you want it's on Amazon or you could probably get it on audio book. But anyways. Um, they were talking about how in the early days of electronic trading.

um before electronic trading, brokers were on the floor, right? They're trading on the floor, and the market makers at NASDAQ and the Specialists on the New York Stock Exchange They're making the market so they're standing at their little booth or whatever and they're They're holding basically an offer to buy stock and to sell stock. and they're creating the spread and they profit from the spread. So they just sit there and all day long. You know people are buying and they're They're They're actually managing the market.

They're punching tickets and then those tickets get entered manually and that creates the tape. So it's like all a manual system and then late 80s I Think it was maybe very early 90s they switched to require see because this is the thing when all of a sudden there was a drop. The market makers were like oh, we don't want to make the market anymore they would step back and that would all of a sudden create these flash Panic crashes even in regular market. So then they said we need to have some form of, uh, digital electronic trading.

So all the market makers are required to post a bid and an offer in the electronic system and up to 100 shares. They have to honor it. So now let me get out my whiteboard here for a second. This is kind of funny.

All right. So um, let's see. Oh my whiteboard is a little screwed up. I'm going to push back this uh, camera, That'll be.

That'll be good enough. All right. Uh so so what would happen is you know let's just say a stock like um AK at a so the market maker is posting a bid. um you know at let's say $8 whatever it was yesterday of 100 shares and then they're on the ask the offer at 850 for another 100 shares.

All right. So what would happen is the spe the the market makers put in these orders and they were in the system and they had to be honored. So the next morning if the stock was gapping up to $16 a share because there was great news it's up 100% Well these orders were still in the system at aund at 100 shares at $8 and so what people would literally do is they would buy the 100 shares right here on the offer from this Market maker Market maker number one. This guy's a real dummy.

He forgot to update his orders so Traders would buy from this stale order but he has to honor it up to 100 shares. They buy 100 shares from him here and then of course there's market makers that have actually updated their prices and they're at $16 a share 16 you know 20 and then they would turn around and then they would sell it to this Market maker right here profiting a well in this case eighto return. So boom that's 800 bucks 800 bucks and then what they would do is they would go and do it again. They'd buy and then they'd sell and then they'd buy and then they'd sell and then they'd buy and then they'd sell.

And there's a story of um someone doing that and making like $125,000 or something because the market maker was kind of sleeping on their order and the market maker was so upset he walked across this was like I think it was in New York City He walked across um the street he was so angry and he actually stabbed the guy with I think it was a like a letter opener or a pen or something. He didn't kill him but he was really really mad. So um anyways this what this makes me think is um you know we've got this. um we we have I feel like something similar happening and I'm not sure you know how it all the pieces work together but you know let's just obviously recognize that we had ATK special acquisition company yesterday trading at let's see what what was the close.

yesterday's close was. um it was actually $10.51 So 1051. That was the close 1051 and then this morning all of a sudden it it's $90 a share. $90 a share.

Now you know, obviously there weren't any like you. This didn't trigger a short squeeze, although someone who could have been short this stock at 10 would have been. uh, facing an 800% they'd be down a tremendous amount. You know a th000 shares they'd be down 80 grand.

But it didn't trigger buy orders to go through. Remember, of course stop orders. um don't work pre-market they only work during regular trading hours. but of course a margin call Could Happen pre-market and a broker could start executing on that Margin Call Um but but we didn't see that cuz if we did we would have all of a sudden seen a lot of buying come through and it would have squeezed up to 90, 100, 120, 150.

So we didn't see it a short get squeezed. um longs it almost seems got the biggest benefit because those who were in before now the Stock's at 90 and pretty much all morning they're just selling, selling, selling selling. So you know you have to think like who's benefiting from this and it seems like the Longs are the ones that were benefiting from it. So then it's like okay, um you know But once again, how did the stock go from there to there on 2 38 shares of volume market makers not making the market? Um I I don't know, you know I I don't I don't have an answer to it.

but obviously this is the thing where we saw it today on Atak. We saw it on S um Smap which I already showed you. We saw it on um Brli. so this one went to 50 Brli.

This one didn't go up as much. this one went up to Um 16 but yesterday it was at $6 Then we had uh Byts BTS this one. Let's see um so it was like and this is the thing. It wasn't just one stock, it was like all the Spcs this one went to $26 Then there was Clay CLA y This one hit a high of 32.

There was J Aqc so all of these were special acquisition companies. Uh, it's it's weird and you know how what could you have really done with this? I mean I guess for us as retail Traders you you could have considered shorting, but the fact is the spreads on these were terrible, the liquidity was really poor and God forbid all of a sudden uh a short from earlier did start to get forced to cover. You know their their clearing firm or their broker just starts pressing the buy button and you know, holy smokes, that could have been really really bad. um that could be an an epic squeeze on something like this.

so you know I Don't know that it would have been super safe to to be short in a big way, but um, it's just weird and it feels like kind of I don't know. Just like something in this sort of system is a little bit broken. Now the other day I was talking about how there's this sort of Mis Mis perception that um, these market makers and high frequency trading algorithms create liquidity. And they do, but only when the market is very um, range-bound Because when the markets are volatile, then all of a sudden a lot of these algorithms will just turn off.

You know a a stock will trade outside the standard deviation and automatically it just back backs out. It's it's turns off, it's gone that high frequ that particular algorithm. It it knows when it performs the best just like me as a Trader I know when I perform the best and I know the type of stocks I perform the best. So there's a lot that I might trade and then at a certain point I'm like, no, I can't trade it anymore and these algorithms are no different.

But what we know and what we've heard is that they make the most in tighter ranges when they can just be turning shares back and forth back and forth back and forth. and when you get these really big extensions up and down, there's less there, there's more, a lot more risk, and so that reduces the the ROI and so they'll just back out. And then you have these areas where it's kind of wild because you'll have a stock. For instance, that is, you know it could be trading.

Uh, it goes up and then it's kind of in this range. and in this range here you know the volume bars. It's kind of like light volume and then it comes up and then the volume just sort of stays constant. here.

It's like you just have a lot of volume and then when it starts to pull away here, what often happens, you get more volume initially on the pop and then the volume starts to go down lower and lower. and lower and lower and lower. As this is going parabolic. we've seen that.

and I I Think that speaks to the fact that a lot of this volume in this area is generated by these highfrequency trading algorithms you know, and institutions and whatever market makers and things like that. So on the one hand, when stocks are breaking out of the range is when things get interesting. That's when we get the bigger moves and and maybe part of it is because they pull back their orders. Uh, But on the other hand, when you have something like this, it's like it's almost the most extreme level where it it becomes untradeable.

So I I would sort of say there's a little bit of a bell curve here of tradability of these stocks. and like this, you know was sort of the SP today which I don't even know what to think. This is also sometimes. um, we've had a couple times where there's been um broker errors with reverse splits where the reverse split isn't calculated correctly and then it gets all wonky.

there's been um Q sip uh errors where the ID for a stock it gets mixed so you're ordering on one stock but it's not going through on the other. You have symbol changes, sometimes a symbol change that doesn't get updated across. other Brokers means all the orders that would have been there to make the market are gone because their system didn't pick up the symbol change. So you can get that really big move.

so some of these opportunity but they can carry a lot of risk and then down here for me I would say is like you know your Bank of America and you know large caps and you know these stocks that just are so range bound. They're so dominated by the algorithms they don't even move. and then there's kind of this sweet spot in the middle you know, which requires a certain degree of volume, a certain degree of liquidity. And yes, we can have some big Winners sometimes on these lighter volume parabolic stocks over here.

but then there's just a point where the risk becomes too high. And yes, we can have some big moves on sometimes stocks that have slightly higher floats like we did this week with C4 and um, Sttk or whatever that one was. um yeah, that was Sttk. But my sweet spot generally is right in this area.

and so what does that mean? I'm focusing generally between 2 and 20. These ones today were all pretty expensive. I'm focusing generally on you know, stocks that have, um, doesn't need the dollar sign here. stocks that have news.

None of these had news today which made me even more skeptical. I Like to focus on stocks that have relative volume of five times. These ones may have higher relative volume because their actual volume is just so light. Um, but but their total volume is still, um, just doesn't really work.

so I Like to see stocks. obviously they're up at least 10% I Like to see floats of you know, under 20 million shares so this is kind of The Sweet Spot Some of these were close to fitting in, some of these spacks were close to fitting into it today, but um, were either too expensive or didn't have. you know, good volume and and when weren't clean. So the trades that I took today I I did take a trade on at Uh K ATA K but but you know and it's fine I made 2,300 bucks on it.

Um, there's my P&l So I just did this bounce trade down here and I kind of got in a little late it so you know I was sitting here um and it curls up right here to 17 and I watched it right there and I was like hm, you know I was streaming and I said I don't know, you know this. this is curling. That's a nice pop of volume there in that candle. You know it's definitely off the low, but you know, I already had two red days in a row here.

Uh, I'm really not looking to take a third have a third red day in a row. although at that moment I was already read on sttk by 500 bucks. so I was like uh I don't know you guys I'm not I'm not sure if I'm really feeling it I don't usually like trading below Vwap, so it comes back up here to a high of$ 21. Uh, pulls back and I ended up taking uh this trade right here which is probably even riskier because it was right under Vwap, but it did have more volume at this time.

So I took that trade and then I bought this dip right here on this bottoming tail candle and my best exit was probably like $23.50 or something. Actually I sold. um um actually I sold 228 shares at 2425 that was. that was.

um, that was a pretty good exit. the high was 2450 anyways. but I didn't take big size and so you know even though went up a couple dollars a share I only made $2,321 on it. uh, it sells off and and then that was my only trade on it it it ended up selling off so there was a little bounce on that.

If this had continued. I did have the level two up for Smap I was like okay, maybe this one could also bounce off the low right I had the level two up for clay I thought you know maybe if one starts to bounce, these others might bounce too. um looks like Clay is super light volume brli this one tried to bounce um but you know it's just so thinly traded it just wasn't easy and then sttk my trade on that was a little bit earlier. um I bought this, it pops up here and I bought this dip right here at $730 which was a great great entry.

It goes up to 770. Shoot, I should be up a lot on it. Well, instead of selling when I was up 30 cents a share, I added I added more at 750 and I actually added more at 765 and I even added another thousand shares at 7 70 for the break of 775 and I was looking for that move up to 8. Why was I being so aggressive on this? Well, this one was breaking yesterday's um high of 750.

So I liked the daily setup on it. as you can see right here. um I thought if we broke through that level, we might see continuation and maybe a little bit of a short squeeze up to 8, maybe 820 850. My target was eight and then unfortunately you can see right here the bottom kind of fell out and in one cand it was back at 738 and now I was down 20 cents a share or whatever it was, uh you know, 12 cents a share for my average? So I took the loss on it.

It did pop back up pre-market but I didn't trade that. I was like no, you know what I'm just not feeling it here I just don't I don't want to push my luck. um I'd rather not have a third consecutive Green Day So what I've effectively done here is bounced off of my own ascending support line right there. So those are my two red days.

So um, I am feeling okay about that. but I still have a little ways to go to reclaim my my highs. Um, and this is my all-time high ever. I mean I could zoom this out and you would see that this is, but this is just showing in the last 90 days.

So from Zero 90 days ago, just 90day, um Equity curve. Uh, you could do 60-day and it just will show you just your 60-day profit or 30-day whatever. So you know. Yeah, definitely a bummer that I had, uh, a little red streak in November a red day at the beginning of December and then two red days here with this one being bigger.

um, almost 10,000 whatever. So I I'm a little, you know I'm not, you know I'm just kind of like all right. Like I said before right now, I've got to re reclaim and recoup about half of that loss, Start to get confident, and then I can get a little bit more aggressive and I hope that I can do all of that within like three or 4 days. You know what I mean like.

if tomorrow, if on Monday I have a $4 $5,000 Green Day then just like that I've made back half my loss. Um, with that combined with today, so by Tuesday I could be you know, back in the saddle and ready to be aggressive. but it's going to 100% depend on the market. So if the market is strong and we see some good opportunities, then I can step up to the plate and that's fine I have to be a little conservative still for a couple more days.

Um, you know I don't want to have another red day if I can help it until I've you know I like to kind of have this recovery like I had right here. selloff and then recovery. sell off and then recovery. What I don't like doing is having a recovery and then a dip lower and then a recovery and a dip lower right? So to manage that, I can't get overconfident too fast right here.

I've got to keep either keeping losses very tight or you know, at making progress, making progress would be better, but at least keeping losses really tight and not having another big red day is important. So that's where I'm at here. This is going to be a red week. Um, despite uh, green on Monday and Tuesday and Friday Three green days and those green days are, let's see 3400 plus two grand is uh, 5400.

So like 6,000 in the green days, but then 9,000. Uh, almost. let's see 10 11,000 So yeah, so down like five grand on the week or so. maybe a little bit more than that.

Yeah, it's a bummer. I wouldn't I'd rather it be the other way that I'm up 510 15,000 on the week. But these losses are going to happen. So just catching them getting them out of the way and um, then looking for this next you know, 10 $15,000 Green Day And that'll be Um, that'll certainly be nice.

All right. So that is, um, that is it for me. I Will be back at it first thing Monday morning and hopefully we have, um, some good stocks on the scan. We didn't have a lot of news today here on Friday I Don't know if Monday will be a lot better, but uh, maybe Tuesday Wednesday Thursday We'll get a nice little stretch all right, so that's it for me.

Thank you guys for tuning in and I'll see you back at it first thing on Monday morning Reminder: As always, trading is risky. My results aren't typical. manage your risk, take it slow, and as always, practice in a simulator before you put real money on the line. If you want to check out an episode uh, that.

I recently uploaded I'll put it right here YouTube Thinks you're going to love it all right? I'll see you guys back here on Monday morning.