Hello, my name is Scott Saylor and I have been trading for about 4 years since I was 18-19 years old.  Unfortunately, i really struggled through the years and my journey was a bit longer than most. But I knew there would be light at the end of the tunnel. I did not post my journey on Profitly, though I have used it for about 3 years or so now I believe. I have been a Challenge Student for a little over 2 years now, and majority of my trades are OTC's.  When I got to Profitly, I already had accumulated some losses in an interactive brokers account that did not allow me to track my trades publicly. I started doing it manually but seeing the losses pile up started messing with me mentally. That might sound weak-minded but I was roughly 20 years old, didn't have a lot of money and I felt like a failure when I lost money. I had a great mentality and knew I was going to lose before I made any profit, but for some reason that number next to my name in chat was messing with me. So I got rid of it. So you don't have to believe me that this journey has been real. I am not writing this for just myself. I decided to work with my head down and focus on myself and not worry about what was being posted publicly because in the end, profitly doesn't make or break a trader. 

Over the course of these 4 years I accumulated about 8k in total losses. In 3-4 years of trading I had ONE real significant profitable month of about $2.4k. This was in the middle of the marijuana craze and it was honestly blind luck.  Anything I bought gapped up the next day and I made money.  I know this was blind luck because as I failed to adapt to the market when the sector slowed down, I lost all of that months profit, and then some.

I made some big strides after I graduated college this past May. It took 2 months of head down full grind mode without any distractions for me to put some of my missing pieces together, and I never looked back. I was profitable from September-December after making some solid changes to my mentality and overall process. I averaged roughly 1k a month to end the year.  I was pumped about that, but knew that wasn't going to pay the bills in the long run. So I spent January and February tweaking that process and mindset. I was able to pull together 1k between those two months combined while I experimented with multiple things. As I am writing this, March is basically over and I am up about 7k, making me profitable by roughly 5k total.  An awesome milestone, with a lot more work to be done to improve.  But I love coaching/teaching and would like to help make other's process far quicker than my own, because let me tell you, it was pretty painful at times over those 4 years.  I just wanted to share the main factors that made me successful over the last 6 months, and what I plan on doing in the future. 

1.  Learning to Manage my Risk:  I was all over the place, not fully comprehending risk management. There are tons of ways to do it, but what worked for me was choosing a consistent risk $ amount that I was willing to lose on every trade and not hate myself for.  As long as I was choosing good stocks (which I will discuss) I started consistently making more money on my wins, than I lost on my losses.  That's the goal!

 

2. Choosing the Right Stocks:  I fell into the trap of being what I thought was a 'Technical Trader.'  Meaning I was looking for patterns, like wedges or breakouts on any type of stock and be so confused why they weren't working.  Well, most of them didn't have a NEWS CATALYST. Every stock typically needs a reason to spike big. Without a catalyst, good luck being consistent.  I was also trading stocks with non-abnormal VOLUME.  Focus on big volume.  Not just random big % gainers, but big/abnormal volume relative to that stock.  It pays to look at past history to understand what kind of volume each stock requires to really get going.  Finally, choose solid CHARTS. Making sure there aren't too many bagholders with massive overhead resistance. Strong bullish price action, big volume, news catalyst. 

3. Focusing on the Right Times of Day: The best times to trade are early morning near the open until about 10:30 est, and end of day into the close from 2pm est-close.  Ideally, more like 3/3:30 est.  That is when real runners heat up with strong end of day price action for gap ups the next day.  My best time of day is end of day, so honestly I cut out morning trading as much as possible so I could focus on what fit my personality best.  

4. Networking:  I sucked at this until somewhat recently. Network smart, with people who are further along than yourself who can help bring your trading to the next level. Eventually I had a hard time taking what I was learning from Tim and other teachers and applying it to my trading, because they don't always stick to OTCs like I do. I found other OTC traders such as Jackaroo who really helped me out while I was in the transition from struggling trader to becoming profitable.  He really puts in a lot of work to help others in the chatroom, so special shoutout to him for giving me the last few pieces of the puzzle I needed.  

 

5. Picking solid risk levels:  Something that also took a really long time for me.  I was constantly choosing risk levels that were so ridiculous that any dip was going to force me to exit the position. I started locating which area on the chart would ABSOLUTELY (if violated) destroy my thesis.  This typically is some sort of support level that the stock has held all day long into the afternoon.  When a stock breaks support into the close, good chance its not going any higher.  So focus on locating the area that the chart absolutely needs to hold, try to enter as close to that as possible, and learn how to hold through dips as long as they are above your risk levels.

6. Be resilient:  4 years is a long ass time.  It is hard to fail so much for so long. But there is light at the end of the tunnel if you stay consistent, show up every day despite all the struggling, and continue to work as hard as you can. Trial and error is important.  Having a good initial mentality is important.  I hate to break it to you but you are going to lose in the beginning.  When I started and learned that if Tim Gritani, the best penny stock trader I knew of, lost consistently for the first 9 months of his journey, I knew for a fact I was going to lose.  Possibly for a lot longer than he did.  And boy was I right.  You have to be willing to lose money to learn.  So if you don't have money to lose, don't trade with it because the odds are stacked against you in the beginning.  

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I love teaching and coaching. Outside of trading I am a baseball coach and I run a personal lessons business for youngsters and I coach a young travel ball team.  I know I don't know even close to enough to teach people how to trade the way I want to someday.  For that reason, I decided to open up a second account of 5k to learn the struggles of having a small account. I know most people I might teach in the future will have an account under 10k.  So I want to experience the process so I can relate to them.  This is also to help take my trading to a new level because I know I need to be super selective when trading a small account.  Being over the PDT rule lets me be undisciplined at times.  That kind of behavior won't fly with a small account, so I am thinking this will actually help me trade my larger account more efficiently. I am going to track the journey of my small account on profitly.  If you'd like to follow that process please do.  If not, and you read this entire blog post, I hope you take something from it that shortens your journey.  Thanks for reading and happy trading. See ya in chat!