Hey, this is Jason with TradingReviewers.com, and today we're joined by Max, founder of the popular MadazMoney day trading community. Max, welcome.
Thanks Jason. Thanks for having me.
Hey, my pleasure. Max, before we get started, I wanted to congratulate you on your massive day today, which from what I understand is a personal record. Can you briefly tell us a little bit about today, the setups you traded, the tickers you traded, and also most important — what your P&L looked like?
Wow, I mean, your timing's impeccable, honestly. To have this call today, on a day where I have my best trading day of all time. But today was definitely crazy. That's the best way I can describe it. You know, the ticker of the day was $UONE and that one, if you just pulled up a chart and just take a look at it, I mean that tells a story in itself, right?
It was a big-time short squeeze. And at the open it looked like it was one of those stocks that would just fade off into oblivion, typical small-cap stock — you know, everyone thinks it's fundamentally just going nowhere and next thing you know it traps a bunch of shorts and it takes off. And it goes from, I think it was 13, and then it goes to 15, next thing you know it goes to 20, and then 25, and it was like when is this going to end, you know?
And I think it hit a high of like $40, right? So, I mean, while that's a very irrational move, we all know the market is capable of very irrational behavior. I mean, that spells opportunity for guys like me, right? I got in on the long side on multiple occasions and I ended up... I was up already about $50,000 in the morning on the short side. Mainly of $UONE and I traded another ticker $MCEP, but $UONE in the afternoon, I did not expect to get that kind of opportunity. I did not think that I was going to have a six-figure day today.
You know, I thought that hey, $50,000 that's a pretty good day as it is, and then I wake up and I see this thing going bonkers. I'm like, oh, okay, alright... I'll take it. And I just jumped in and just rode the wave, man. Rode the wave all the way up to, whatever it was, $40 and yeah, I had another $50,000 through the day. So, finished a total, officially I think about $104,000. So, that's a personal record for me.
Insane. Yeah, huge congratulations. That was a massive squeeze. And like you said, I mean, all bets are off. I mean, when you get into a short squeeze situation, it's just, it's hard to find the top sometimes.
Oh, yeah.
They can just keep going. So, huge congratulations. And yeah, I'm excited to be able to chat with you on your personal record day. It's an honor. Can you tell us a little bit about your trading background? Also, how did you originally become interested in trading?
Yeah. So, I have a very interesting story in regards to how I got started. When I first found out about day trading, it was through a co-worker, and I told this story before, but there was a co-worker who showed up to work with a really nice car. And I knew how much he was making, I knew how much I was making, we were working in the same department, I'm like something doesn't add up here. He's doing something, I don't know if he's doing something shady, or he's doing something... ah, whatever, right.
But I went ahead and asked him, and he told me that he bought a bunch of BP stock during the oil spill. They had that, the Deepwater Horizon incident, and he made like $80,000 over a summer. Used it to buy a loaded Celica, and I was like, you know what man, I want in on that. Because at the time I was making $18.00 an hour, so I was like it might be kind of nice to make $80,000 over a summer. So, that's how I got into it.
And up to that point I actually had no idea how to even buy a stock. I didn't know to even open a brokerage account. So, that's the crazy thing you know. The furthest extent of my stock knowledge, stock market knowledge was just AP Economics in high school. That's the last I heard, you know, basic supply and demand and all that stuff. But that was a very fortunate incident. I met that co-worker and that, I never would have thought that would have been the day where I would end up doing now 9.5 years later. It's just crazy how life works like that.
That's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about your background in terms of your trading education? What resources did you use in the beginning to learn from? Who's inspired you and/or mentored you along the way?
So, I actually learned largely from myself. Self-taught and to be completely honest with you I really wish that I had somebody to guide me. So, that friend that got me into trading, I quickly found out over the next couple months, he woke up in the morning with me and we Skyped and we tried to trade and stuff, and I quickly realized he didn't know what he was doing. He was trying to teach me how to trade on like delayed quotes and stuff. I'm like, yeah... that doesn't seem right.
So, I had to venture off on my own and you know go to Google, Investopedia, and all that stuff. But I had to learn a lot on my own. You know, looking back on it I really wished that I had somebody to just walk me by the hand, because I probably would have accelerated my learning curve greatly. And I would have probably gotten there a lot sooner.
But you know, in hindsight, looking back at it, given where I am today and how far I've gotten, I've gotten a lot more, you know I feel more appreciative of how I've gotten here up to this point and the work I've put in. But you know, I mean, I read some books. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, great book. Anything by Mark Douglas. Trading psychology I feel like is, probably the majority of what separates you from being a successful trader over the long term versus somebody who doesn't make it, or somebody who just makes it for a couple of months and they just kind of fade off.
So, I focused a lot and emphasized a lot on trading psychology, and I do a lot of things to strengthen my mindset. I feel like anyone can memorize a chart pattern or learn how to use indicators. I mean, it's pretty simple stuff, but when it comes to actually being in the hot seat and delivering the results when it matters, that's tough you know. That's what I focus on mainly.
Can you tell us a little bit about your approach? And obviously you're a day trader and specifically a scalper, is that an approach that you were instantly drawn to in the beginning, or is that something that you eventually settled on after experimenting with other trading styles?
Yeah. So, at the beginning obviously you're just bouncing around here and there and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. So, I dabbled in swing trading, I did options trading, I did all that stuff but scalping naturally gravitated to me because I'm naturally a very impatient person. That isn't going to change. I'm the kind of guy that wants to get in and I want my money now. So, scalping was the easiest way to adhere to that.
And it just came natural to me and I just feel like when it comes to trading you want to find that style that suits you personality-wise, and it's not like you're fitting a square into a circle. You want to make sure that everything just feels natural. Everything just feels like it's second nature. You're not forced too much out of your comfort zone to the point where you have to reinvent the wheel, you know what I mean?
So, for me personally scalping was pretty much the way I was. It was just me already. And as a result of that I was able to just master it quicker than say another type of style of trading.
And how long did it take you to become consistently profitable in the beginning?
It took me about a year to at least get the just of what was going on. I wouldn't say I was consistently profitable to the point where I would be comfortable trading as a sole source of income. That took me three years. But overall, it was not something that was an overnight kind of thing. It wasn't like I just flipped a switch and I just got it. It was just a lot of screen time, a lot of integrative process and figuring stuff out here, and there, and tweaking and stuff like that. And yeah, it took about a good three years. And that's when I finally decided that I was going to do it full time.
And when you got started were you paper trading, or did you go live right away?
I went live right away. But now if I look at it in hindsight I would say that you should paper trade, because you should learn the platform and you don't like hit the wrong buttons and stuff like that. And you should figure out a lot of the things that you don't want to be risking real money on yet by going live. But I did go live right away, part of my impatient nature, I guess. But yeah, if I were to give a new trader advice, I would always say to go paper trade first.
Yeah, and you've obviously mentored a lot of new traders. How long would you advise the typical, brand new trader to paper trade before going live?
That's a very difficult question. It really depends on the person. People learn at different speeds and I feel like if you feel comfortable enough such that you understand the platform, you understand the concepts, then you can probably live. But you'd still in an incremental process, right. You shouldn't go from 0 to 100. You want to start off like small positions and stuff like that. You know, to put a time duration on it, it's kind of tough. For some people they can do it in maybe a couple months, some people might take a year. It just depends on how comfortable you feel, right?
Some people actually paper trade and they're like alright, I'm good to go and then they jump into and they're like, oh, nope, never mind. Got to slam the brakes. That happens too. And there's no shame in that. As long as you get there in the end that's all that really matters.
Do you recall the details of your biggest trade? Was today your biggest trade ever? I mean, it was your biggest day obviously but in terms of your biggest trade.
No, today was not my biggest trade. Today, collectively was my biggest day. My biggest trade was actually I think it was last week. I don't remember which trade it was, because there was so many big trades but it's thrown in the mix there. I mean, the market's been crazy, right? I mean, I've had several $40,000 trades, $50,000 trades, I think the big trade was a $60,000 trade or something like that. They're all basically the same type of trade, just over and over again with the multitude of opportunities the market's been giving us the last couple weeks.
It's a rush, man. Sometimes you just don't even process what the heck's going on until after you've gotten an hour or two to recompose yourself and be like, wow that actually happened.
Was it $JFIN by any chance?
I think it might have been. I'm not 100% sure but I think so. I think so.
Yeah, that one went nuts last week.
Yeah. JFIN was very much like U1 today. It was a short squeeze. It was a stock that everyone thought was done and that's the perfect storm for a short squeeze. Everyone's piling on, on the short side and next thing you know it's off to the races.
What about your worst trade? It's a topic a lot of people don't like to discuss but it's important to discuss that. And also, what type of impact did that have your trading going forward?
So, hmm, I can't think of it off the top of my head, but I have a couple of examples. So, one taught me a really good lesson. It was this one trade, I don't quite remember the ticker symbol, but I was stuck in a halt and I actually ended up making money on one of the halts but there was another trade where I was stuck in a halt and I think it was $MNK. Okay, so $MNK, Mallinckrodt okay.
So, I think they were, the stock was tanking for whatever reason I forget, it was kind of like if you remember how $VRX was tanking, $MNK was tanking for kind of like a similar reason. And then basically what happened was the stock was free-falling, I got short and I was up pretty nicely and then the stock halted and I was like, you know what I'm just going to hold through the halt and I'm probably going to be able to cover on the resumptions, it's probably going to gap down, probably going to make a nice little profit, right.
Next thing you know, the halt turns into, a circuit breaker halt turns into a T1 news halt and just my luck the news ends up being positive news, it was a defense released by the company. I'm like, you go to be kidding me. The stock actually gaps up, like $7.00. I think I ended up losing $70,000 on that trade. After, at one point I was up like $30,000. So, it was a pretty brutal like reversal of fortune there, a twist of fate if you will. It just messes with your emotions. You're like thinking your about to collect a hefty sum of money and then the next thing you know, nope.
Yeah, it's a roller coaster.
Yeah, so my lesson there is, from that point on I've been deathly afraid of halts. Because when you're in a halt situation literally anything can happen. Things that may appear to go in your favor you never know, right. Things can turn. They could release news, they could pull some sort of shenanigans out of their sleeve and next thing you know you're at the mercy of the market again.
So, the rule of thumb for me is personally, as long as you have more control over what's going on, then you're fine. But if you're relinquishing that control, by you know, holding stuff overnight or holding through a halt, or things of that nature, then you're kind of like exposing yourself to that risk. You just got to be aware of that and be mindful of it.
Yeah, it goes both ways. You can get a big gap in your favor or you can get a big gap against.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a roll of the dice. How many hours a day do you work on average and what does your typical day look like?
So, I try to keep it around 2 to 4 hours, maybe less. But, recently haven't really had much time. But you know what I'm not going to complain. I'm not going to complain. It's been pretty, pretty insane. I've been working pretty much the whole day, sometimes even after hours because things are running after hours. But yeah, I try to keep it within, I'm a big proponent of trading when the edge is high, when you have the opportunities to make the easy trade.
As we all know, the morning is when usually most of the volume takes place, when most of the price action is volatile, and for a day trader like me that's when I would thrive. And then progressively throughout the day things kind of die down a little bit. The volume kind of diminishes and usually that means that there's less opportunities. But recently the whole day has been just pretty, pretty active to say the least. So, I don't mind it at all.
Yeah, it's been a busy time. A lot of volatility. Well, lets transition over to talk about the community that you've built a little bit, MadazMoney. What would you say inspired you to start the community and to build that?
Well, I've always been creating content to help others, help new traders because I always understand how difficult it's been to, you know from my experience, to get started trading, we all know the statistic 90% of traders fail. So, I want to give back to the community in that sense because trading has done a lot for me and I kind of see all these other traders that are struggling. I just feel like if I have the power to help them make their life a little bit easier, I would do it.
So, for the longest time I created a lot of content on YouTube. I've had training videos on YouTube since 2013 or something like that. I've been writing blogs for several years and after a certain point my following, it got pretty high. And as a result of that I didn't have the resources to handle all the inquiries I was getting. I felt like creating the community allowed me to kind of centralize everything. I have the website, I have the room, people can reach out to me in one place as opposed to okay, there's a guy here that's reaching out to me on Twitter, there's another guy reaching out to me on email, there's a guy reaching out to me on Instagram, or whatever.
So, now it's all centralized, right. And now people can go to MadazMoney.com, they can view all the videos, all the blogs, they can talk to me, they can listen to me live trade on the air every single day on the mic. They can ask me questions while I'm trading. It's very interactive. And I just feel like it's a very hands-on experience that everyone finds a lot of value in and I'm very happy with the way it's turned out so far.
Yeah, you've done a great job with the community. There's a lot of resources packed into there. The support is amazing and also the video library is a huge asset, big value add. There's so much good content in there. It really is a perfect situation for a brand-new trainer. They can come on and it's very affordably priced, it's a great way for a brand-new trader to come on and to get a good start, a good foundation right from the very beginning.
So, I think you've done a really nice job on the community itself. What would you say are the main things that set MadazMoney apart from some of the other day trading chat rooms that are online? Because obviously there are quite a few...
Definitely the interactive, hands-on experience. We've had several people come from other chat rooms and join ours, and they're here to stay. And one of the main things that I hear is the fact that we're very, very hands-on with our members. I pride myself in my ability to respond to each and every single person's DMs every single day. Even, you know everyone knows, even when I'm halfway around the world on vacation, somewhere in Europe or Hawaii, I'm still going to answer people's DMs.
I like helping people and the live mic sessions, you know I'm calling out my trades live on the mic, it's a lot faster than reading words in chat vlog. I just feel like overall I've really catered the experience to somebody who really wants to just be immersed in that environment, that learning environment where they can really, not only just be a part of the community but actually interact with the moderators, interact with myself and just fully feel like they're really, really learning. And using all the resources that we're providing them in the best way possible to help them succeed.
How did you meet the other guys that are helping you run the community?
Twitter, mainly on Twitter. I met Micah on Twitter a couple years back and then I met Lukas through Micah. And then Anthony actually reached out to me on Instagram. They're all really great guys. Definitely give them a follow on social media. They're all very special in their own way and I'm really proud to have them on the team.
What do you enjoy most about being involved in the trading industry?
The financial freedom. The ability to work from anywhere. The ability to just meet so many people that have different approaches to still achieve the same goal. I think that's very interesting. You know, trading there's no one right or wrong way. There's multiple people that do this style or maybe they take a certain approach that I would not have thought of, and it's just very interesting to see all of these in action.
Especially in the community, we so many different guys that trade different styles. And in the end, we're all after that paycheck, right. And it's really cool to just see all these guys figure out these new innovative ways to extract money from the market.
And it's obviously such a big blessing right now, particularly, when so many people are shut in, locked down, unable to work, unable to earn an income. To have the ability like you said, to sit there from literally anywhere in the world, on a laptop if needed and generate massive daily P&Ls like you're turning out is just, it's a very unique position that you are in right now. Yeah, it's fantastic. We're almost out of time today, Max, but there's one more thing I wanted to ask you about. Do you have anything new planned in terms of new resources or features for the MadazMoney community?
We do have a lot coming up. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal them at this time. But believe me, we do have a lot of things in the works. We're going to expand and add some new stuff. We have some new guys in the room that are helping out to create content and they're giving us new ideas and hosting webinars for us, and providing a different insight into ways to trade and ways to make money in the market. We're growing our team, basically. So, we're growing our team which means we're going to expand and we're going to introduce a lot of new stuff. So, exciting times for MadazMoney but unfortunately at this time, it's still a secret.
That's no problem. Looking forward to seeing what you unveil here in the near future.
Well, that does it today for our interview with Max, founder of MadazMoney. Max, thanks for coming on and taking the time to tell us a little bit more about yourself and the community. We're certainly excited to continue following the progress of your personal trading journey and also the MadazMoney community going forward.
So, that's it for today everyone. Until next time, happy trading.