Day Trading A Stock Up 260% in 1 Day...

What's up everyone? Welcome to day 34 of my 
small account challenge of growing a $2,000  
account using Charles Schwab as my broker. Day 
33 was a red day recap, the third red day so  
far during this challenge. And so I'm happy 
to report that today, day 34, is a green day.  
Grateful for that. And I was able to make back all 
of the loss from day 33 and send the account now  
to up over $70,000, which is phenomenal. Now, 
I'll say that the red day on day 33, well,  
it was somewhat avoidable. Um, I I took 
that that second trade that I took.  
I took a big position. I didn't cut it 
quite as quickly as I probably should have,  
not because I couldn't have easily just pressed 
the sell button, but I got a bit emotionally  
compromised. I got a bit attached to the position. 
Now, it's important to recognize that you're more  
likely to have that happen as you increase your 
share size. So, as you increase share size from,  
you know, 1,000 shares, let's just say, up to 
like 100,000 shares, you know, a huge position,  
your likelihood to become emotionally compromised 
is like it's the it's the same chart. You you've  
got well, maybe it's a little bit it's drags a 
little bit behind. you probably have a fairly low  
likelihood of becoming emotionally compromised and 
then your likelihood of compromise increases uh  
really quickly. And the issue here is that when 
you're trading, you know, 30 40 50,000 shares,  
you're let's just say you're in the middle here 
with a 50,000 share position, it's not easy just  
to press the button control Z and bail out of the 
whole thing because you know you're going to get  
what? You're going to get slippage. And so at a 
certain point as you increase your share size,  
the slippage also becomes greater. And that's what 
often ends up keeping me in a bad trade. I think,  
boy, well, I just got into this with a big 
position. I got some slippage on the entry.  
If I turn around and exit right now, I'm going to 
get slippage on the exit. So, I'm going to hold  
it and give it a chance because just the cost 
of taking the trade is greater due to slippage.  
Now, one of the nice things about trading in a 
small account, and the account's not as small  
right now at 68, $70,000, but we're trading 
in a very small account, $2,000, $3,000,  
you can jump in and jump out. You get very little 
slippage. And so, it's very easy to trade based  
just on the setup and not get caught up in this 
sort of extra layer of, you know, decision making  
based on how much more you're going to lose 
because you took bigger size. But on Friday, I  
had I think it was eight or 10,000 share position 
on that Israeli stock that was squeezing up and  
it popped up. I was in a good spot for a second 
and it flushed back down. I didn't want to get  
out and then have it go right back up. So, I held 
it longer than I should have. Ended up taking a  
big loss. But, you know what also happened was in 
my big account, I was read on Friday over $60,000  
because I got stubborn on that same trade, which I 
had with even bigger size in my main account. So,  
I held that until it completely got wrecked. And 
you know what was interesting? When I looked back  
at my orders, I had my first order to sell at 
I think it was 750, right around $7.50. And of  
a 50,000 share order or something like that, I 
only filled about 300 shares. And unfortunately,  
what happens is that when a market maker sees a 
big order like that coming in, they can see your  
hand and now they can take advantage of you. They 
pull the bid and you get slippage on that order.  
So, essentially what they do is they frontr run 
your order. They cut in front. They short right  
ahead of you. Your order sells at the very bottom 
and they're profiting off of the difference.  
Now, this is a highfrequency trading algorithm 
tactic that is legal because they don't have a  
fiduciary obligation to us, their competitors 
in the market trying to make their own money.  
What feels unfair about these algorithms is that 
they have access to data in tools that we will  
never get which is exclusive to uh brokers and 
prop desks and you know actual in institutional  
trading firms. So the ability to execute trades at 
that level inherently does give them an advantage  
that you and I will never have. That doesn't 
really matter when you're trading with small size  
which is why the small account you can 
just get in get out. There's no pattern  
day trader rule anymore. So there's no reason 
to get attached to a setup that's not working.  
But once you start trading with bigger size and 
you know those algos are hunting for you because  
they want to take advantage of bigger traders in 
the market, all of a sudden you make a wrong move.  
You jump out. You could have a setup for instance 
where you have a stock that's squeezing up like  
this. You've got a nice move. It's looking good. 
You get a little pullback just for a moment. You  
get a little dip right here. You jump in right 
here and it it does like a a big topping tail  
and now it drops back down like this and then a 
minute later rips back up and goes right through  
the high. Right? So if you got in here with 
50,000 shares and then you sold down here,  
you know, 50,000 share position, you're probably 
losing, you know, let's just say at least 10  
cents just on slippage on the entry and exit. 
It could be more, but let's just say 10 cents.  
So you're losing five grand of slippage. So, 
you're thinking, well, the cost of this trade,  
you know, I already was risking 15 cents from my 
entry to my max loss, but then I've got to add  
an extra 10 cents for slippage. So, now you're 
risking more on the trade. You get stopped out  
only to watch it run. What do you do? You get back 
in right here and then potentially risk the same  
exact loss happening twice in a row. And I've done 
that and it's infuriating. And you think, well,  
I shouldn't have sold here because now it's going. 
And all of that is the emotion that you have to  
deal with when you start scaling up to bigger 
share size. So, this is sort of a different um  
a little bit of a a different uh part of the 
journey of trading in a small account from  
you know when it's 2 $3,000 but once you get up 
to 25,000 30,000 50,000 75,000 100,000 now you're  
having this sort of challenge of I want to scale 
up but I know that there's an inherent risk in  
doing so. the the wins will be bigger, sure, but 
the losses will also be bigger. Slippage becomes  
a bigger factor and then my emotion, my mindset 
will shift because more money's on the line.  
And so what often happens for traders is that 
they end up taking bigger sh I mean look,  
anyone can just punch the order for 50,000 shares. 
So this is like in order to trade this level,  
you don't need just the capital in your account. 
You need to have built the emotional stamina  
to tolerate these big swings and to make good 
decisions even in the spite of uh or even in the  
moment when potentially you're um you know going 
in the red and the right decision is to cut it and  
you're thinking oh well maybe I should just hold 
it because it goes up later. So, you know, I share  
all that because um as the account is growing, I'm 
now facing some different challenges. And so, yes,  
the loss on Friday was much bigger than it should 
have been because even with just 8,000 shares,  
I got a bit stubborn. And part of that was, of 
course, also because I was in the same position  
with my big account with 50 plus,000 shares. 
So, I just got attached to the whole trade. I  
became emotionally compromised and then I ended 
up losing like 50 70 cents a share, whatever it  
ended up being. So today uh you know I came in and 
when I first sat down this morning we did have a  
lead and gainer that was obvious and that's the 
stock I ended up trading. Now as an update to our  
fundraising challenge as you know all the profit 
from these challenges gets donated to charity.  
But every time you guys hit the thumbs up you add 
an extra dollar to how much we donate. So even if  
I lose money during the entire challenge in my 
trading I will still make donations uh because  
you guys are hitting the thumbs up. So thank you 
guys for helping with that. you made up for the  
fact that on Friday I was red, but we were green 
in terms of thumbs up. So, have donated $450,000  
with a goal of donating to uh 50 children's 
hospitals across the United States. We are at  
45 now with five more to go. So, today for day 34, 
our leading gainer was IPST. Second leading gainer  
IVF, third leading gainer, uh TRUG. Uh now what 
was interesting today was that as I looked at  
these two leading gainers neither of them wereun 
Chinese which is confusing because last week and  
for the last several weeks most of our big 
moves have been on Chinese small cap stocks.  
So you know I was like all right it's a US 
company but is it really? So I uh just checked the  
the company. I checked the address and I'm like 
yeah no it's it really is a US company. Hm. the  
first NASDAQ listed company to hold data tokens, 
formerly IP, as a primary treasury reserve asset.  
So, I don't usually like these asset treasury 
strategies where they buy an asset, just park  
it on the balance sheet, and then the value 
of the company's essentially the value of this  
a derivative at this point. Um, so I feel, you 
know, I, so I look at it, I feel like it's not  
Chinese. It has no news. It's a US company 
and it's in this treasury strategy arena.  
I don't know. Feels kind of risky. IVF is the 
second leading gapper. Fertility Inc., US company,  
healthcare. No news as well. And I'm thinking, I 
just don't know about that. So this ends up going  
from a dollar up to $3. IPST ends up going from 
what was it? Um $3 up to 8, but then sold off.  
So coming into the 7 a.m. sort of opening for 
traders on Schwab. You can't trade before 7 a.m.  
I was not really sure we were going to get I I 
didn't know what we were going to do. I knew that  
obviously IPST was the leading gainer. And so 
for that reason alone, it was fairly obvious.  
And so I did my analysis of the five pillars 
of stock selection on the stock. So number one,  
demand. It's got to be up at least 10%. It was up 
175% when I took my first trade on it. Uh, another  
characteristic of demand, it needs relative 
volume of at least 5x. It was actually 180,000  
times higher volume today than a typical day. 
That's crazy. Number three for demand catalyst,  
it should it should have a news catalyst. Uh, and 
this one did not. The price should be between 2  
and 20. It was the float under 20 million shares. 
It was less than 700,000. However, this one did  
have a shelf registration. And so with a shelf 
registration, we don't really know the exact float  
because these companies can sell shares from time 
to time. So the true float is a bit unknown until  
we get the next filing. But for right now, it 
appears that we have a low float. And certainly  
we had some big momentum. So we had a couple of 
patterns that formed here at about the same time.  
This is a big inverted head and shoulders 
pattern. So you kind of have to sit back  
from the chart a little bit to see it. This is the 
top of the shoulder right there. Then that's the  
head right here. That's the other side of the 
shoulder. And then that is as it squeezes up.  
So the head and shoulders pattern basically looks 
like this. And typically has this sort of upside  
down look. So this is the smiley face here. He's 
upside down the man. So or the woman, it doesn't  
matter. Or the whoever it doesn't matter. Doesn't 
matter. It doesn't matter. So the the person  
uh of the head and shoulders pattern is inverted 
in this position and this is uh bullish. If the  
pattern is uh the other way around where it's the 
side, the head and then the side, it's bearish to  
go back down. So that's an important distinction. 
So I like an inverted head and shoulders pattern,  
not the traditional head and shoulders. Uh however 
on this chart we also had descending resistance  
as you can see right here connecting from 
approximately the high there to this candle here.  
Now I could have drawn it to right about 
here and that would have been just fine.  
Um so I took a couple trades on this. My first 
trade um in my big account I took right here  
and I was trying to anticipate that the break 
over volume weight average price would send us  
back through the high of this level here 685ish 
and then we would squeeze up to seven and break  
through the pre-market high. It rejected and I was 
red on that first trade. And again with a bigger  
share size it wasn't easy just to jump in and jump 
out. I had to you know actually uh you know well I  
got slippage so I ended up having to take a bigger 
loss on it. So, I was down $12,000 in my big  
account on that trade right there. No trades in 
the small account, whatever. Then it comes back up  
right here and I take another stab at it. So, very 
similar is what I was sort of explaining. I get in  
and I get out. I take a loss. And, you know, 
because slippage, the loss was $12,000, bigger  
than I probably would have liked it to have been. 
And so, then when I get back in here, I know that  
I'm risking the same thing happening again. And 
now I'm going to be down um, you know, whatever,  
$25,000. Then it comes back up right here, breaks 
through 640, which is what I wanted it to do in  
the first place. And this is where we had the 
break of this descending resistance level. And so  
I added on this trade here. And then uh after it 
was working, I added in the small account as well.  
So my small account trade was after my 
big account. Uh which is fine. I mean,  
it wasn't as good of an entry, but it still 
worked. We got the breakthrough seven right here  
and a squeeze up to eight and then a little 
push up to 840 and I was in and I was out. Uh,  
I actually had two trades during this 
little um five minute window right here.  
Then it pulls back. It comes back up and I got 
one more trade on it right through here looking  
for a squeeze through the high and we had another 
topping tail. And now at this point you can see  
these topping tails. So it's not really working 
unfortunately. Um, but nonetheless uh was able to  
jump in, jump out, got a couple trades on it and 
that was enough to lock up a green day. So, I'm up  
$2,8375 on the day, which now brings my um overall 
profit year to date up to about 68,000 versus the  
$2,000 starting balance. I'm at about $70,000 
in the account. Now, you'll see that it shows  
my intraday buying power is 7* 4. However, in 
reality, most of these stocks you cannot use any  
borrowed money or leverage on. They won't allow it 
because they're too cheap and they're too risky.  
So, even though technically I have leverage, I am 
I'm not able to use it on 95% of these trades. I  
think only on one or maybe two trades during this 
challenge have I been able to use leverage. So,  
that's fine. Um, I'm not using a buying a hotkey 
based on the percentage of my buying power the way  
I was at the beginning of the challenge. Now, 
I'm just buying using a hotkey for 2,000 4,000  
6,000 shares, which uh works just fine. So, that's 
where I sit here at the end of oops, not day 33,  
but correction day 34. So, a nice green day. 
Um, continuing to make progress. And for those  
of you guys that want to keep watching over my 
shoulder as I grow this account, make sure you  
check out the twoe trial link is pinned at the 
top of the comments and in the description. And  
I'll see you guys back at it. I'll be streaming 
bright and early tomorrow morning. The next goal  
in this small account challenge, $75,000. Let's 
see if we can do it this week. Thank you guys as  
always for tuning in. And reminder, trading is 
risky. My results are not typical, and there's  
no guarantee you'll find success whether you 
trade with me or you learn on your own. So,  
please manage your risk and always practice in a 
simulator before putting real money on the line.