He Accidentally Discovers a 6 Figure Trading System

because you're not going to find true long-term success and consistency until you build that system explain why though that's a huge part yeah i love that welcome back everyone to be the trader today is a special day because we're in las vegas for a conference and i'm here with a new friend evan schunk who is a traitor and who's someone that you're going to want to listen to and understand his journey because i'm excited to understand it even more after having just a brief conversation with them so evan welcome to the show my man hey thank you for having me absolutely so before we get started to like what got you into trading how long have you been training uh since april 2018 so maybe like what four years and a month now okay yeah and have you feel do you feel like things are constantly changing right now yeah definitely i could see it in my data really nothing's the same like it was in 2020 especially gappers uh completely changed 2021 change and now 2022 changed yeah is that your style like playing gappers uh yeah i'm a short bias trader i'm 95 of the time i'm doing shorts if i'm belonging something i'm usually losing um and uh yeah everything's a short bias i'm doing gappers over extended plays first red days etc and is it uh focus on more on small caps yeah small cavs pretty much usually my limit for most is 500 million some i'll i'll let it go to like a billion or something but usually 500 million or less is my market cap niche cool and the reason i wanted to ask you those questions real quick just to give the audience an idea of where you're coming from and but i really want to know like what got you started though like what got you started into trading uh i've just always been so fascinated with the stock market in college just i mean just looking at them watching them move and having some money in there seeing it go up and down felt like gambling a little bit um so that always was interested to me that and i always knew that people are out there successfully trading and making money a living off it right you know also i've always wanted to know how they how do they do that i mean you gotta learn the rules of the game and so of course at the time when i got into it i didn't know anything i was you know buying earnings report i remember i bought a bunch of solar earnings report very volatile after the solar company so they would fly up and down and i'd get lucky sometimes yeah there was no uh i had no no basis for any decision making other than gambling with it at first um and so then uh uh after college you know i graduated in 2017 um i had to figure out what i wanted to do and i just knew i wanted my only passion really was the stock market i just i want to do something with the stock market anything there's any job in the finance realm that's even close to the stock market i just want to want to be around it um so i went to go take my series 66 um that was my first decision actually failed it twice second time it was only by one question but that one question could have been a big difference if i passed it i might have applied for jobs but when i failed it a second time i actually go i went up home and i saw uh timothy sykes on my tv the the steve harvey episode uh where he's getting interviewed by steve harvey yeah just like listening to him talk you know he made sense um on what he was talking about i was like i was like you know what all right that's my guy i'm going to sign up for this chat room yeah i'm going to get my all the day trading i'm going to try to learn the rules here and that's where it all began that's nuts man yeah but you said you always knew you wanted to be in the realm of like the stock market right and in college like where you graduate college you wanted to go towards that do i remember that correctly yes hey we wouldn't be able to do these face-to-face interviews if it wasn't for our sponsor cobra trading so if you can just give them a few seconds of your time we'd really 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stuck with anthropologists i didn't know what i wanted to major and i knew they wanted to do in college yeah so i just chose this the study that was most interesting to me and i was really fascinated with anthropology so i was just like all right let's just let's just do it whatever so you graduate you go into uh you start to learn you get a course what happens next like is it is it easy for you then what year was that was like 2017 or 18. yeah i didn't graduate when i was 26 okay uh so 2017. okay and so that's when you join and start to learn that's when i well i tried the series 66 and i almost passed it but then i was like you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna go for day trading i mean i know people are doing it i i think i'd be good at it i just always knew it was kind of like a game you got to figure it out though and you know i have a pretty good gaming background um so i was like i knew i could do it if i really gave it my all yeah um but what i was trying to get to is where how long like was it easy for you like and once you start to learn oh like was it like difficult it was really tough it was really hard i mean i lost a good amount of money in the first 20 months um i did nothing but lose for 20 months straight of course you'll have your wins every now and then but my losses were wiping out any any good win i even had um and it sucked uh it was really tough in the first 20 months so that's how long it took for me to start getting consistent and profitable what were you gravitating to at the beginning though like in like say in the first like five six months like what were you trying to do first i was trying you know longing stocks getting into otcs you know panic dip buys um and just buying movers buying big percent gainers um and nothing seemed to be working for me i i didn't really have any you know a system in place or a process just trying everything out and it wasn't until you know watching you know tim gratani's trading tickets dvds uh did i finally start finding my place and what was work with my uh process what stuck out to you what stood out to you from those like those dvds you just mentioned that helped you kind of find your place the statistical side of it the data side that katani and ducks are you know huge on and they teach it um that's what stuck out to me too because i could have like i remember in trading tickers one the gratani would do like what the overextended gap down like famous chapter right yes um and it has like uh he shows the samples he has and it had like you know an 80 close below open rate um and you know if you know that that gives you a directional edge of where that stock wants to go right and so that that makes me a lot more confident in a trade um so concentrating on that is what helped me produce my process so you said 20 months right it just it was hard for 20 months when did you discover that part when you were like i need to be more statistical was that in that 20 months or after like where was that right so i guess that was uh so in 2018 i started and i guess it was really towards the end of 2018 after six months of just you know learning the basics like what's level two and right how what am i looking at like yeah it's so intimidating at first it really is there's just so much so much information level two wednesday even just the chart of like what is this like candlesticks whatever um and it wasn't until 2019 that i really start tracking data and kind of get an idea even just what to track uh criteria and what to fill out on my spreadsheet yep and that took about you know probably six months yep eight seven to eight months and then uh it's 2018 so i start so i have data from like 2019. yep um and that's when it yeah so whenever you did find um in that 20-month mark i'm trying to put it together where 20 months you start to get consistent right and you were consistent pretty much so when that happened that was before you started collecting data i'm trying to figure out when you start to collect the data like you know what i'm saying so i was actually wanted the question for you sorry well tracking data helped yeah and they were confident in my trades and the directional edge that i wanted to be in like short or long um and i started getting a good with discretionary trading but also using my data but it wasn't totally systematic yet it was very discretionary um with data backing those decisions and uh i started getting profitable towards the end of 2017. so 20 months was probably yeah just at the end of 2019 and i was getting consistent and i was doing discretionary trading and uh i was tracking my data and it was working out i was making you know some good money yeah um nothing crazy but it was it was a livable yep and uh i was happy and then uh so that's that's when i started becoming uh consistent but it also were to tracking the data and being at you know the office on long nights and just looking at everything charts over and over and over so you now so at that point you you're trading statistic with also discretionary correct right yeah and you started and you do that for for how long before you start to change because i know you start to change yeah i change more to systemic uh side once i saw my brother so okay so i tracked a bunch of data in 2019 um and i was working discretionary but then i started my brother he he would be good he should maybe tell you this but uh he uh lost his uh job due to covet okay and uh he was a music teacher and he needed to um and so he i oh and i finally started getting started getting good at trading and once i did i told my brother that hey once i start getting figuring this out i'll teach you it and i'll show you and everything and that started happening and i saw i come to come over and i started showing him teaching teaching him he would follow my trades but it wasn't until i showed them my data the system that i built like at exact entries and exits and um the timing of it and everything um and i was like if i did this off two thousand two if i did this uh entries and exits in 2019 for you know this specific gaffer play with this criteria look how much i would have been up by the end of the year and he was going through it and he was like oh wow i what what why am i following you why didn't i just do this and i was like i mean you can i just haven't tested it yet but on paper it looks incredible right uh and he's like dude yeah i don't want to follow you anymore i'm just gonna i want to just do this so i was like do it i think it's gonna work i just uh i wasn't doing it yet because like my discretionary was working at the time i still need to switch over right and then as soon as i saw him make like six thousand dollars in one day yeah and i made like two grand that day or one grand and well as soon as i saw that happen i was like all right i'm doing both like i'm switching over and i'm gonna keep doing discretionary but i need to obviously do some systematic training because i just couldn't believe how much it was working yeah that's awesome so are you do you sometimes fight the whole idea of like going back discretionary from because like right now your system i'm fully systematic explain what that really means because some people might be listening to this and they'll be like well the systematic mean this or this like what does it mean to you uh so i back test strategies i harvest data through multiple years and i have criterias on you know gappers or you know for thread day or overextended gap downs and i'll make specific criterias the market cap the float um extension criteria um i'll compare you know i'll look at their 100 smas the pre-market fades and i'll put all that together and um if the stock on the day is triggering every criteria that needs to for the specific pattern that i'm looking at i will have exact entries and exits on the chart um and exact stops the same stops same uh exits same entries and i will do that every single time and i'll look at that um from the beginning of the year to the end of the year and see what my profits could be or should be of course you know every year changes the data but uh that so that that's how i do it so do you now want to know like do you fight now that people have to understand what you're doing now systematically do you ever fight or come in to the mirror with your old self of like discretionary and like maybe maybe systems not working right now right and then you want to come over here you're only human and your emotions get ahold of you and you know always now and then i want to outsmart my system if i was like no i it's gonna go higher and i'm gonna wait for that higher entry and like i don't get it and it collapses and i miss my entry and that happens because the emotions will get better you you think you can i think i i know what's gonna happen when you know so i really don't all the time unless you like really know how to read the tape and got a good feel on what it's doing with that it's so tough uh discretionary training um so i'm more of a systematic guy systemic eye whenever you say it's so tough to like know what's gonna happen next even though like like so when you hear people like and sometimes we'll hear things like oh we know it's gonna go here yeah like can you explain to people from your experience in training like it's maybe not like that no you you don't really you just have a good um you can maybe have a really good thesis that it might go there um but you never really know um no you just have you can make really good arguments here and there and there's better arguments than others sure but you're never always going to be right sometimes a bad argument can win still right you can win that that's why i put my trust in the numbers yeah the numbers aren't going to lie to me uh i see them year in and year out and i i trust that more than anything so taking you back to that time where you just said earlier when you're trying to gauge like maybe i can wait to get my entry a little bit higher because i might have a better opportunity here and then you miss it because you kind of second guessed the system or wanting to over uh be smarter than the system as you said yes when that happens because i'm sure it happens right yeah when that happens what happens immediately after what is evan doing like is evan is evan starting to make different types of decisions now or is evan doing the opposite of like not doing anything just like i missed it like what are you doing at that oh i'm killing myself and i'll probably chase the entry a little bit okay then i'm like all right i'll just i'll accept the loss i'm 30 cents lower entry than what i should be but okay that's fine whatever let's just let's just get in it and take that loss and continue on and just another fresh reminder of just follow the system stop yeah but perfect execution to me is following my system right right right i love that you said that and how you said it so relaxing and nonchalant like it's going to happen like it's it's part of trading it sounds like and and what's interesting is it's like a lot of people are probably learning their system right now yeah right and maybe they'll have as much confidence as you do in your system but maybe they're doing their system and they're making those mistakes every now and then like maybe they uh i'll wait for my entry over here because i think it's gonna go further right but instead they beat themselves up and they get upset and then they're like i should have done it and they just missed the trade and they're disciplined not taking it later right right but then they get upset right or it's the other guy or ma'am who is thinking you know what i'm going to wait for the entry and they do wait for the entry and they take it but they ended up being wrong they're taking a loss and they're like they don't trust their system you know yeah so talk to those people like any suggestions on how like what they can do to help them prevent going down the wrong path of just like completely destroying your system just because you make a mistake like that right um so all right to be clear can you sure yeah i made a long question but to make it short is like whenever you do make that mistake yourself yes right are how do you prevent yourselves from just throwing away your system right and just becoming like revengeful and a fomo and going down the wrong path i mean just you got that that just takes discipline i mean keep control of your emotions um trust your data that's easier said than done like people will have data and they'll probably just be sitting there looking at it and they don't fully trust it um if you got years of data back tested and you have a right criteria where a pattern's been working year in and year out i mean trust that i mean that it's showing you every year that it's working i don't just follow that system and ignore everything else that that's why it's so tough because that's not everyone can do that emotions get the better of you and you gotta cut the emotions out you really have to become almost a little robotic would you say you've always been that way or would you say you kind of built you kind of created yourself to be that way i mean if you got good mentors that teach that they'll don't steal it in you and you know there's good ones that do that and you know follow their advice don't revenge trade uh don't don't chase entries unless it's you know a reasonable chase and you make a good argument for it uh don't uh don't think you know i don't know better than i don't think you know better than the market the market will mess you up that's true so have have your you have to have your rules in place and you have to follow them or you'll get it it'll get beat whenever you were going through this whole process from the beginning to end was there ever a part or a point during the journey where you really felt like man i'm not going to be able to make it yeah that happened after probably six eight months of eight months of trading i was just another it was like a huge a 2k loss that's huge for me at times my account was small and i was like oh my gosh another one like of me just buying a gapper i was buying gaffers doing the gap and crap reversal that i don't know how people do the catch gaffers that reverse and go up because the odds of that happen are low trust i've seen it enough but the ones that do yeah they'll make a killing but picking those ones is so tough and i would try that and that that was awful for me i lost tons trying that strategy um and there was a point where i was talking to my buddy my friend and uh i was just like dude i never felt like i wanted to quit before but i'm down like 10k now and i'm just be i'm so stressed out i just can't get it together um but i just kept at it i stopped trading and just focused on the data kept doing that trying to find a pattern and you stopped trading for a little bit yeah after that well i mean just like you know for a few weeks maybe uh to focus on the data just to focus on the data and i still watch the market every day every chart but i just took a little i stopped trading for a month yeah to just concentrate on the learning again building the knowledge account yep i love that and then you probably also got like some separation from the yeah that helped get some separation from it uh but yeah that's what i did what was it because you said uh like was there's a like an achilles heel that you had at some point because you said oh i did it again and i don't know if you just met you're just shorting gappers yeah or is there something that you kept doing my achilles probably buying gaffers um and the other one was uh it got to the point where i was too afraid to get into a trade a lot of people have the fomo they're so easy to jump in the trade i was opposite i i was at the point where i was just i couldn't execute uh and i was just the only way i was gonna lose every time so i had to get over that um so that was my achilles uh just smaller size like whatever that's what i always tell people whatever size you think you want to do cut that like in a half and cut it again and a half like that's that's what you should start with yeah why do you say that why do you say that because the emotions are going to get to you and you're going to lose and you're going to lose hard in the beginning there's no way around it you're going to come in and be high hopes and think you've got you're going to do great and you're going to get wrecked you're going to get wrecked in the beginning that's the truth yeah and it's going to take a lot of time for you to get consistent and so when you get wrecked let's get wrecked on you know small money and let's not hurt yourself or anything what about the person who's like but i do have a system so i'm going to go out i have you know money so i'm just going to do it and he built the system already maybe maybe he built a knowledge account first maybe okay yeah maybe or maybe they learn a system from maybe like i know you don't like what if you did and maybe they learn your system you know i'm saying like what do you say to those people who kind of like i have a system supposed to work still do small size okay no matter what even if you because you're not going to find true long-term success and consistency until you build that system explain why though that's a huge part yeah i love that um you well one you're not gonna have the confidence and and and the capacity to truly trust that system when uh like when winter comes when when because every system deals with big downsides every now and then there's some volatility with every system you will eventually there will come a time when that system gets crushed maybe for a month maybe two months maybe three months but and then it will come back and you'll maybe reach new heights again but when that downsize happens how can you truly feel confident in that system when that system is getting crushed you have to really trust your system you have to build it inside out that and you know everyone analyzes data differently um so always recheck their system there might be errors in there that they just haven't seen i mean how can you you trust i i trust nobody is i mean learn from everybody but don't just fall you're not gonna you'll never find success following um so you need to build your own system because that will give you the confidence to withstand downtrends um withstand when things get tough and withstand the longevity of your system when winter does come because you say it comes to everyone right when it comes what are you like do you know you're in it and then when you know you're in it like what are you doing like what is evan like do you have a protocol like okay i got to start doing this now yeah i so adapting you got to be quick to adapting especially with data data changes example you know the gap is in 2020 that's not coming back like that was an anomaly year for gappers and everything failed i can't tell you how successful it was you were as a trader if you were shorting gappers in 2020. um i feel like people don't talk about that enough i never hear people say like how incredible gappers were in 2020. it was extraordinary i mean gaffers get people that short gappers now yeah um but anyways but that changed in 2021 and again in 2022 um and if you're not quick i'm keeping up with that uh your system will deal with some serious volatility because what was working in 2020 is now not working in 2021 so you have to update your data and fix your criteria uh i got to the point now where uh i actually so i met a friend i didn't i didn't have uh you know uh access to polygon uh in 2020 polygon issues you know a coding program to access any market data you want okay but you got to know how to code it's not user friendly at all yeah um and i finally afraid a friend in one of these uh trading communities um his name is calvin yeah and he is really good at coding and he and we work together we've teamed up now and he can extract any data i ask for um and he'll get me gappers from 2015 16 17 18 19 20 21 22. um anything i want um i want the 100 sma from 2018 i want the pre-market fade from it whatever i want um so now i i have changed my criteria to where i want to see a pattern working for five years since i want to see the same pattern working since 2017-15 i want to see my patterns withstanding um every single market change time um and that will give me more confidence because now i i'm starting to see this year's been a little volatile for me not the greatest year yeah um and so and i was because i wasn't quick to updating my patterns um and noticing the change in some of my plays so i dealt with more volatility and it was it sucked and uh so i make the change to now i want a foundational like universal criteria that has been working every year for my patterns or you know at least for four years yeah um and that is now my approach so i appreciate you sharing this because i think it's important that everyone understands that i've talked to so many traders and you know this that every trader goes through this yeah every trader it doesn't matter where you're at in your career you will go through winners yeah you will and i want to ask you like when you go through these winners everyone has different like some people do some people don't but do you find yourself sometimes just like ever second guessing yourself during the winters and if you do is there anything you can do say to help you that helps you go forward because like i'm sure that happens to people there was one time me and my brother girls got really low it was in 2021 yeah i think it was we were getting crushed so crushed to the point we were like literally like dude what do we do we stop for a system like this is insane how much volatility can we last like we were getting max losses every day yeah for two weeks straight it was like crazy and we're like we couldn't believe it it got to the point where it's like our accounts were getting really you know not not dangerously low but like low yeah and we were just like what do we what do we do and it was like one disc you either size down obviously or you right you ride or die yeah and actually um i think my brother's size down i chose to like i'm not i'm trusting my dad i'm right or dying this like it's gonna come back like we're in a winter we just you know keep going and uh and it worked okay that pattern started working again yes um because i had a long-term perspective that this is just you know these few months suck but you know according to the data in the year term we will regret sizing down geez that's that's tough yeah it was really tough that was hard it was probably the hardest time was in 2021 a lot of people because you know the like you said earlier you even said it yourself like the go-to that we hear all the time is slides down right you know what i'm saying so that's just tough that that i like that you said you're trusting your data yeah and you kept pushing forward yeah because that's hard to do when you're going through it absolutely it's easy to do yeah when when things are good yeah and you'll be thinking in those times hey you know i'll be fine when it gets winter like yeah yeah but when it comes yeah you gotta be ready you gotta be i'm glad you have a brother who trades that y'all trade and and you know in communication with one another because it's like you're having someone extra to voice and get opinions yeah and kind of like deal with the right mindset yeah dude like does it share that that's tough man because a lot of people don't have that like they don't have maybe they have a friend that's cool too but like maybe they don't have someone they can actually talk to oh yeah and i think that's a big deal yeah i i deal with probably in the beginning at least in 22 i dealt with fear a little more than my brother did my brother he can execute he's he doesn't get emotional that much uh so that that helped me become more unemotional yeah yeah like i can't miss this execution he's about to hit it i'm right so uh that so he was helpful in that sense so yeah it's good to have to trade with somebody uh because it will help with your execution i think so i love what you said that he was just watching him be able to execute in a certain way yeah enabled you to have more confidence to do it as well right so before things got scary right yeah or but to be on that same topic before you start to wrap things up i want i want to ask you this is there anything else that stands out from you like that incident where maybe you learned something from your brother or from another friend or from just having a conversation with someone else maybe it was even trading related but it helped you improve something in your trading um just to don't miss execute that uh don't let that fear get to you i mean i've never really had a problem with that only certain periods yeah i'd be more fearful but just being more uh robotic like my brother's very robotic he he won't miss that execution if that's a system he is in right there yep um and so that that type of you know that cultural promoting those that sort of thing is really been good in our little team that we have that's good that's good if you could go back though in in the past before you went all full system before any of this before your brother got into trading what would you tell yourself to help you get here now um trust the data try and track it rigorously um back test the data and and that is what i would and all your answers will lie in the numbers okay just cool follow that and and execute well i appreciate it i've been looking at it it's been a pleasure talking to you and i know there's gonna be a lot of questions possibly so if they have questions maybe if they want to connect with you or follow you in some way is there is are you like on social or anything like that yeah i got a twitter uh eastern gate okay um that's me is it are you instagram or just twitter yeah i'm on instagram too is it the same but it's mostly my followings on twitter on twitter okay so we'll share that on the link below and again evan hey man hey pleasure thank you for having me yeah absolutely

Channel: B The Trader

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Keywords: day trading for beginners, day trading strategies, learn to day trade, beginner trading stocks, stock market for beginners, how to trade penny stocks, day trading tips, day trading tips for beginners, learn to trade penny stocks, learn to trade stocks, learn how to day trade penny stocks, bthetrader, b the trader, bthestory, b the story, Trader, live trader, stock trader, crypto trader, stakes trader

Id: CCxGC-YZkOI

Length: 32min 7sec (1927 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2022