J

All praise goes to the most high! 🙏✝️

Honestly, I’d rather let seasonality play out this month. We’ve managed to dodge it plenty of times this year, and at some point, the market needs to get it over with. Rip the Band-Aid off, find a bottom, retest it, consolidate, and then start working its way higher. I’d rather see a healthy reset that builds a solid foundation for the next leg up than keep kicking the can down the road.

I see a ton of smaller accounts giving up on X. Don’t. And don’t make monetization the goal, the money is peanuts. Post because you love the game, share what you know and keep showing up. I’ve always believed the rest follows when you genuinely love what you do.

A follower asked me a great question, and I figured I’d answer it here because I get asked about scalping quite a bit. When it comes to risk, I don’t start with a percentage and then look for a trade. I map out the scalp before I enter. I want to know my entry, invalidation, target and how much I’m willing to lose if I’m wrong. From there, I determine my position size and R multiple. The trade has to make sense from a risk to reward perspective before I click the button. If I can’t clearly define my risk and where I’m wrong, I have no business taking the trade. Capital preservation comes first because you can’t compound an account if you keep blowing pieces of it up. As for how much money you need, there really isn’t a magic number. You can learn to scalp with a relatively small account, but your expectations have to match your capital. A 2K account and a $100K account are completely different situations. Trying to force large returns from a small account usually leads to excessive risk. If you’re starting out, focus less on how much you can make and more on whether you can consistently execute the same process. If you can’t do that with small size, increasing your size won’t fix the problem. I’m also not a big believer in paper trading for learning how to scalp. Deep down, you know the money isn’t real. There’s no emotional attachment, fear of taking a loss or pressure to execute properly. I’d rather someone start with a very small amount of real money and trade tiny size. Make the losses insignificant while learning how you react to real money moving against you. Once you demonstrate consistency and discipline, slowly increase your size. When I’m looking for a scalp, there are three things I want to see, in this order: Context. Location. Confirmation. Context comes first. What is the broader market doing? What is the stock doing relative to the market and its sector? Is there momentum, a catalyst, strength or weakness? I want to understand the environment before thinking about an entry. Then comes location. Where is price sitting? Is it at a key level, previous high or low, VWAP, support or resistance, liquidity zone, volume area or another level that matters? I don’t want to chase price in the middle of nowhere. I want price to come to me. Then comes confirmation. This is where I’m looking at how buyers and sellers are behaving. Volume, price action, liquidity, Level 2, order flow and momentum can help confirm whether the move I’m anticipating is developing. That order is important. Context tells me what I should be looking for. Location tells me where I should be looking for it. Confirmation tells me when to act. Timing matters too. The market behaves very differently at the open compared with later in the session. Some periods offer incredible volume and volatility while others are nothing but chop. You don’t have to trade every minute. Knowing when to sit on your hands is one of the most important parts of becoming a good scalper. Another thing I learned the hard way is that you cannot turn a scalp into a swing simply because you don’t want to take a loss. If the reason you entered is no longer valid, get out. Take the loss and move on. There will always be another setup. You aren’t paid for the number of trades you take. You’re paid for executing your edge when the right opportunity presents itself. Sometimes the best trade is the one you don’t take. As for hardware and software, you don’t need anything crazy. A reliable computer, stable internet, a broker with good execution and solid charting software is enough. I personally like multiple monitors for my charts, scanners, Level 2 and order flow, but more screens don’t make you a better trader. Most importantly, don’t get into scalping because it looks like an easy way to make money quickly. It isn’t. It requires screen time, discipline, emotional control, fast decision making and a repeatable process.