I share how I screwed up some trades in Chinese equities and what we can learn from them and then I pose a potential stupid news trade in oil and finally talk about maybe creating a Substack group. A reminder too on the mentorship podcast form that I want people to sign up for so we can enjoy learning from each other.
[00:00:01] I want to share a bunch of different things this morning. First off, I want to share a trading situation that happened with me. So I had these, I subscribed to a bunch of Substack newsletters because I'm a big fan of just connecting with other people who have good ideas. And I've always gotten more out of paying for information, just either making relationships with people or getting, honestly, it's just one idea per year is worth many, many fold of most subscriptions you get.
[00:00:30] And that's just always has worked with how I do things. I like to have a lot of information and then make my own decisions. So I know that Chinese equities have been setting up from many different angles, fundamentally, not necessarily price action wise, we'll get to that, but a little bit they were, but just them having to stimulate and create their own domestic consumption over there because they're locked out of a lot of the international markets, all the trade wars and stuff.
[00:00:57] And this two fold system with the US and China with technology and all, people know a lot of the story. I'm not going to get into all the story, but my point for this podcast is that you got to be really aware of when you're doing things like that, that there's a niche, like smart crowd, which would be like people with subscriptions who maybe do well in jobs who are paying attention to trading, trading part time, trading on the side. And a lot of times you're in the same positions with those people at those times.
[00:01:25] And the boat is loaded in that little niche bucket. And when that happens, a lot of times the price action is it, the follow through doesn't happen as much as you'd expect, if that makes sense. Because we're getting into this world now where these little sub stack corners and these little opinion corners and blogs and stuff are kind of powerful and people are getting their news more from things like that than traditional stuff. So initially I mentioned I make my own baskets of narratives that I want to follow. And one of them was like a bunch of Chinese equities.
[00:01:54] So I looked at the ones with a lot of cash and good fundamentals like JD and Tencent and Alibaba and Baidu. What else? PDD, a couple others. And then I noticed that from my price action tool that I use to figure out when I want to get in stuff that I'm interested in, starts firing. So I get in and then they announced that crazy bazooka stimulus thing and I got massive gains in a couple days.
[00:02:24] And then I started seeing all the stuff on the people I subscribe to about how it makes so much sense to keep going. And so I kind of broke my rules a little bit and held on to a lot of that shit. And it crossed back below a lot of the moving averages that I would have used to stop myself out. And then it came all the way back down. It literally came all the way back. And then it started setting up again. So I bought it again and it popped up again on some congressional like meeting that was we're going to do more, more stimulus. And then it came back down again.
[00:02:50] And now it's like it set up again last week for the third time and now it's starting to head up again. But there's been no news yet. So my point is that so I got out of some of it and kind of basically screwed it up. And then I made a little bit of money on the second one. And then I'm positioned again now. If it goes up again, I'm positioned again. But it's just a reminder of like the subtle nuances about really understanding your time frame and what you're trying to do. So for this trade, I think this trade could have some legs for maybe a couple of years. But I think it could be really bumpy and frustrating.
[00:03:20] And also I think it has some really good swing trading opportunities. But if you get stuck in between the swing trading opportunities and the opportunities for a couple of years, you land where I land where you're stuck with a bunch of other people who may have not bought as well as me. Like I got good buys because I was using this tool that showed me when things are tight and narrow and this action is starting to get better. So I was able to get in like luckily get in in front of the news. So I didn't really get hurt, but I gave back my winnings mostly. And I kept a little bit of it and I'm still in some now, like I said.
[00:03:48] But it was like if I would have just followed my stop stuff that I do with all my other swing trades, I would have done great on those and got back in and been in them again. Instead, I just kind of, you know, I got caught in like this is a position trade and a swing trade, but I'm sized for the swing trade. But then the position trade is like, so I literally had to go over to another account and put some of these on a little smaller and just say, screw it, this is for a while. Like this is for, this is a bigger picture trade.
[00:04:13] And then with the swing trade stuff now, I'm moving forward that giving back that money was a huge benefit to me because I'm like, all right, now I'm really going to tighten up and be super aware. More than ever, if there's other people talking, even if it's a niche group that think the same way I do, there's a good chance that it's going to be bumpy because they're already in, they're long. So usually the best idea is like, no one's talking about them. Like I screwed up the quantum stocks, but I saw them early on the basket I was watching. And I talked, I mentioned, I talked myself out of it.
[00:04:42] And nobody was talking about that when I was doing that trade. And now everyone's talking about it. You know what I mean? So it's just like, no, you can do good on trends that everyone's talking about too, but the real explosive moves are when no one's there and you're kind of watching. That's why I love watching. That's why I've really shifted my approach to pure price action more because you can have all the narratives and you can gather all the smart people telling you why something's happening. But a lot of times they're camping and they're bag holding. And you can develop a system.
[00:05:10] It's not that hard to backtest moving average crossovers, whatever you want to do. RSIs, whatever it is, like MACD. And figure out like, how do I effectively trade a trend if I have an idea that it's going to happen? And then you start or studying like how people trade winning stocks and how they stop out when they're wrong and how they enter and just apply that approach and then wait. Don't get caught up in the stories and the narratives. This could be useful for during the day too. So that's like a big thing that I picked up from this trade.
[00:05:39] And I've already started to improve my process for it. So like I talk about this all the time, but I don't know if other people have a problem with this. But when you're like, I've moved from day trading to swing trading, position trading, I kind of dabble in all of it. I leverage my skill set in any time frame I need to. And I'm not just doing one thing anymore. It's different than jumping around. When you're struggling and you're jumping around, I'll trade gold, I'll trade oil. That's different than taking an approach I feel like that I'm taking where I'm trying to apply it anywhere.
[00:06:11] I'm in oil right now and some oil equities and oil futures because I think there's a stupid news set up here happening where Trump has talked about drill, baby drill, and all this stuff. Like three days in a row we've gone down on the same thing. And we all knew it from the campaign that he was going to do that. And I just think the oil market had moved up strongly before, like at the beginning of the year, after being neglected and beat up forever. A lot of people stuck along in energy. A lot of people.
[00:06:38] So I feel like it might be time now to head back up, at least for the stupid news trade, to take out the relative high around 80 bucks or whatever in oil. So I'm doing that trade with some futures options and some regular futures. And we'll see. I mean, it might not work. But it's kind of a, I think it's a, if I'm reading it correctly, I think it could be a nice stupid news opportunity with kind of with the underlying short-term trend that's developed. So there's that. And then the other thing is I've been racking my brain.
[00:07:09] Like we've talked about like, oh, there's a group that's coming and a paid group and a mentorship podcast and all these other things. And I'm still figuring this out. But one thing I am doing and I've done, I've recorded one of them already. And please, if you sent me, somebody sent me one of them on my website, tradinglifepodcast.com. If you go on there and click on mentorship podcast, you can fill out in details whatever you're struggling with. And me and Brent will get out and do the call with you. And then we'll post it after. And you can read through all the disclaimer and what we're doing.
[00:07:38] And please give me as much info as possible on your strategy so I can help you and Brent can help. Iron out. It could be psychological too, whatever you want. Like it doesn't matter. It could be a situation that, whatever the hell you want to talk about, honestly. But just give me a lot of detail. Somebody went on there and I didn't have an email part in the form. So I couldn't get back to them because I don't have an email. That was my fault. So if you did that, go back on there and please refill it out. But yeah, more people, please jump on and do this because I think it's cool to hear from other people.
[00:08:07] And when you hear their problems, it sometimes is the same as your problems. And me and Brent really enjoy doing it. So that's going to be just slowly filtering those out as they come. So I'll post one of them probably next week that I've done already. And the other thing I'm thinking about is what I enjoy the most is I just like trying new technology and staying with the AI stuff and adding it to my trading. And I've been like this with every era, like crypto. I was like this when it came out. And whatever's next, I'll be the same way.
[00:08:36] So I'm always doing it a little sooner than most. And that's a big part of kind of my edge too is I'm very curious. So having a think tank where I'm floating ideas that I'm looking at and I'm floating ways that I'm using technology would be something I really enjoy. So back to like a paid group, something like a sub stack that's got like a monthly pay where we have a chat and we can get a group in there.
[00:09:01] And I can facilitate kind of chat between here's some ideas for the week that I'm looking at. Here's the technology I'm playing with. Here's the things I'm trying. I think that could be a pretty cool thing. So I'm kicking that around now. I've been talking to my wife about it and seeing what makes sense to do. And I don't want to be beholden to do things, but I want to. I find that I do a lot of stuff that I keep to myself and I just want to get it out there. But I don't want to write. I hate writing. It's a pain in my ass to write.
[00:09:30] So I think this could be good, like an audio sub stack letter. And then it has a chat, like a WhatsApp type chat built in because I'm in a few groups that have that. And I think that could be pretty cool. So that's potentially something I'm going to do too. But for now, the Mentorship Podcast is already available. It's free. And please go sign up for that if you're interested. I think it would be. And I get to meet people. Like I met a really cool guy, me and Brent did. And now we have each other's info. And we're friendly and we can build our network. So that's a great way to build your network too is just to go on and do it.
[00:10:00] You just got to do stuff. Just take risks and do things. I mean, honestly, if nothing else, then to meet each other is cool. So yeah, that's it for today then. And I'll post that 30-minute recording. The other thing I'll say about it is it's the first one we did. So he explained his strategy a lot in the beginning. And it was kind of long. There's nothing wrong with what he did at all. I think for the listeners, we're going to get better at tightening it up and making it even shorter next time.
[00:10:29] And that's my job is to probably explain it and then have him fill in what I missed. That's why giving me a lot of detail on the form is nice. And then I'll try to keep him like 20 minutes so you can just digest them and say, OK, this is the takeaway. But I think we got some good takeaways for him, like some psychological ones. And then Brent had some good ones about just like if you're going to do this trade, it makes more sense to do it this way. This is cheaper or things like that, like just reasonable ways to execute better. So look forward to more of those.