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James 0:01
Hey, what’s going on guys, and welcome to the newest episode of the After Hours Podcast. Today we have a very special guest op trader. His name is Olivier, which I just learned is really hard to pronounce. But I think I got it. Perfect. Thank you for coming on, man. How you doing?
Olivier 0:20
I’m good, man. I’m good. I’m excited. Excited to finally meet you guys and talk to you. Yeah, usually chat on my chat. Yeah. So to be part of it. Thanks for the invite, man.
James 0:31
It’s, it’s so funny. Like, we talked to each other like all the time on like main chat, but like putting a face to the name is like such a different thing. It’s like it changes the game. But it’s cool.
Olivier 0:41
My picture there. You know? So yeah, exactly. Just to be, you know, to put a face to the person typing at least you know who you’re talking to, you know.
James 0:49
Could be catfish. And so you can be like some like 98 year old woman on there.
James 1:00
So I guess we’ll dive right in. But so now, I guess our first questions are, how long have you been trading? How did you get into it? And like kind of how did you get into MIC?l?
Olivier 1:11
All right, well, I’ve been trading on enough since 2015.
How He Started Trading
Olivier 1:16
So I was working full time. And I was learning trading. You know, I was reading reading everything I could find like books, online videos, I was learning about swing trading, investing. But day trading. I started doing it last year, early 2020. Because I found out when I was working full time, I’ll be taking some swing trades, and I’ll be making money. But I might just leave for a moment. And then I was trading on my phone in my account will be cut in half. And I’m like, yo, what? And then man distress. I was like, I cannot trade on the phone. I mean, I cannot do it. So slowly, but surely. I I saved up and then I signed up for Tim Sykes challenge last year was a waste of money, man. I mean, no disrespect, but good. I mean, I learned some stuff. But man, as far as process, nothing, you know, I was depressed. I was like, man, what are you doing? Like, you wasted all that money on this programme, and you’re not even making it back, you know? And then one night, late, depressed just going to YouTube. I found Bao man.
James 2:34
That was like an Asian God, just fine to me.
Olivier 2:37
Everything changed. I mean, it’s I used to hear about him and the community modern. We’re just getting modern what when I never knew who he was what he looked like, but I would hear about him. And then one night, I just typed modern Welcome to MIC on youtube. And in the first video I found was him renting. And he was telling us talking about everything I was feeling man about how, you know, people are getting, you know, messed up in the industry, you know, they’re losing their money people are following through rules getting dumped on. And that’s what I’ve been doing. And ever since I didn’t stop, I just listened to everything you said. And I listened to every single video about on YouTube, every single one I can find even created a playlist. I still have them. Listen. And then there was like, last year 2020 December 2020 There was like a deal for like, discount Christmas. He’s like at the three month I got the quarterly and I didn’t stop since then. Man. I just keep learning, learning learning. I mean, I listen to bow every day for his videos.
Olivier 3:44
I’ve watched a profit
Olivier 3:48
And then I started making money I would get some nice trades man good trades and then I would lose it all I will get some good trades lose it or good trades lose it all. And then I found out it was it was deeper than that. I mean, learning the techniques is not enough does something wrong on my end personally, I need to fixed and it was my mentality. I’m a fighter man. I mean, I fight a trained martial arts and never give up. So taking a loss wasn’t natural for me. Like I want to make it back. I want to fight like I’m accepting it. And that’s what was messing me up. So I’d sit down with myself man and be like, Yo, you know, the trade. I mean, you see the setups you know what, enter. You’re just not disciplined. So I went dark. I didn’t chat. I didn’t post anything in short and and chat for like, three months since June. And I just worked on my mentality man discipline, in risk management everything. I worked on it. And then I’ve been training consistently since then I’m back and chat. I’m sure it’s Yeah, but as But the habits still show up here and there. The fighter he wants to fight but I’m like, yo, I need to find a way to control him. Yeah, but yeah, but that’s pretty much it. That’s where I’m at in a row is just the goal. Initially, what attracted me to trading was the you know, the financial freedom like to make it quick but if that’s what attracted you, that’s, that’s not what’s gonna keep you here man. I mean, you need to fall in love with the process. And I know everyone talks about process but process is everything man I mean it’s who you are like how you wake up how you go to bed, how you think how you act, how you plan your trades, I mean, how you find your trades, how you mitigate your risk everything, man, so you need to work on mastering that. I mean, that’s my goal, mastering my process and profits take care of it.
How to Fall in Love With the Process
James 5:51
I think something key to note, before you go here, I just want to read this year, your bio on MiC, which I love is keeping that white belt mentality in my trading process. A black belt is a white belt never stopped showing up to practice. I just wanted to read that because I think that’s badass quote. I think that’s real good.
Olivier 6:08
Dude. I learned that from I learned that from Brazilian jujitsu below good slag, man for every nine every 10 People who sign up for jujitsu class only one be a black belt because of how hard it is you want to learn how to fight but dude the struggle the showing up the pain the aches, the injuries, only the love for it will keep you going. So are planning on trading and I’m getting some results from it. So it’s it’s amazing.
James 6:34
Oh, fucking true. I love that.
Harry 6:38
You mentioned kind of taking this this like little break from trading and or not from trading, but from from the chat and, you know, yeah, kind of working on yourself. And like spending some time with yourself, which I think is really key because like I’ve done similar things is that as well. Maybe you could kind of go into detail a bit of like, kind of like what you did, like, was it just like maybe like walking and listening to music? Or was it like exercising? Or, you know, like, how did you kind of go about that process of really kind of working on your discipline, working on yourself, just taking that time to really become the best trader and really person that you can be?
Olivier 7:17
Okay. All right. So to martial arts, I’m disciplined in that aspect. I mean, I know how to wake up eat clean exercise and all that, but it wasn’t translating in my trading.
The Mindset of New Quitting
Olivier 7:28
I was stubborn. I mean, it was deeper. It was it was a belief of never quit like never, never accepting defeat that was hindering me, man. Like, I would take some nice trades, you know, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable and be happy with what I had. Because I stopped out and I’m like, Man, I need to make this. I mean, I need to get it. And it would mess me up. You know. So what I did was, I had to sit down. I mean, I talked to myself, I mean, I’m very driven to mental stuff, you know, visualisation, a meditation. But I really talked to myself, like, I’m like, yo, you know how to trade. I mean, you’re learning it, you’re seeing the setups, you see what’s working, you see the possibilities, you get it. But you’re stubborn, man. I mean, if you fix this, I mean, I tracked everything I tracked, I tracked my my wins, my losses in the losses are all done from being stubborn. So what I did was that I went back to my trades, I see what I was good at what I was bad at. And then I see what made it bad. So I, I wrote it down. And then the first thing I did was to talk to myself, Man, and there was a way to talk to yourself. I mean, it’s like a child, you cannot be hard on him on your mentality. You cannot be like, Yo, you suck. Like you cannot do that. Because, yeah, naturally you will you want to fight back, you want to resist, so I had to tell myself, you just do it slowly. Like, you know, if you have to take the loss, it’s okay. There’s always not a setup coming up like it’s fine, then I mean, just take this, you know, it’s fine. Even if you lose, did you trade well, then if you traded well, then it’s a win. So I had to reframe the the mindset of defeat losing into a mindset of you know, it’s not a loss, it’s an opportunity. It’s not a loss. It’s one of the probabilities that didn’t, that it wasn’t gonna work. Now, because my setups are like 70 80% of the time they would work. So that might be the 20% It didn’t work. So it’s okay. As long as you treated it. Well. It’s fine, man. So I kept doing that. kept doing that. I kept telling myself you’re It’s okay. And before I took a trade, I talked to myself and I’m like, is this a good entry? Is it then Okay, did you plan it? What would bow do here? What would Alex do here? Yeah. All right. Are you oversized? Are you stressed out? If you’re stressed out reduce your size man, like you have to You’re too big. And then yeah, so I talked myself and then when I get a good trade I congratulate myself on like, Yo, he did a good job, man. Keep doing that. And then over time, over time, I started like, getting confident, but doesn’t does, like, trapped there. I was, I was getting confident. And then I will take a loss. Because I was like it, I get it, you know, should I get it? And then the next day, boom, get back to him and get back. So it’s a process, man, just having a process and trading isn’t enough, you need to have a process in your life, you know, yeah, as a trader, because I look at it as, as the high level athlete, you know, like a champion. They don’t just show up and fight man they eat, they sleep fighting they, they are champions, man, like they, they work on their minds, when they show up to the arena. They you know, like, listen to music, anything that gets them into the mindset to start, you know, their performance. So it’s all in the mind for me, man. I mean, you can learn them, but the man is what’s gonna either make you or break you in this so and I learned it. And I had to figure out who I was as a trader before I could even get some consistency in this because this is like, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
James 11:21
I mean, I can already tell it’s actually like, one of my favourite episodes, because I think yeah, I think a lot of trade. I think a lot of traders did have such a negative mindset of trading, like they know it’s what they want to do, but like, they approach it so wrong, like they fuck up, they beat themselves up. They like just, they just have this kind of like tornado of emotions all the time. And you seem like super, like I dont want to sayl Zen, but they definitely seem like super in control that like is how did you get like, that wasn’t just from like, fighting? Or is it like something like before plating? Like, how did you get to this level of like, self recognition to it’s very impressive.
Olivier 11:58
Man life, getting beat up, knowing like, yeah, knowing like, you’re okay, you know, you’re here.
Olivier 12:05
You know, there’s always someone worse than you. I mean, I don’t want to go into too much personal stuff, because where I’m from, it’s very, it’s rough. You know, it’s a very poor country. And for me to even be here, it’s a blessing for me to even to even try to learn trading and to find my mentors. You guys know about Alex. It’s not I cannot take it for granted, man. So I need to put into work and and I cannot waste this gift, you know, as far as the mentality. I mean, I’ve always been like this man. I mean, I’m, I’m stubborn. I mean, if I want something, I just hit my head onto the wall until I figure it out. Or get humble enough to find like a simpler way to figure it out. You know, so I don’t know, I’ve been like this.
Harry 12:58
Kind of, I wanted to kind of pivot over to the kind of like, you know, going about, like your process and the types of setups that you’d like to trade now. I think a lot of people who are struggling and who aren’t consistent. They’re they’re trading a lot of kind of random stuff. You know, like one day they’re premarket logging the next day, they’re shorting out reversal hour, they’re just kind of, you know, bouncing around, you know, using them icy strategies, but like to get really good at something, you know, you have to put some time and, and I know a lot of people will be wondering, like, you know, what worked for OP? you know, what worked for this guy has, he has a consistent, you know, how’s the pulling game? So maybe we can kind of pivot into your kind of process and the setups that you like.
Olivier 13:44
Okay. Well, it was a process, I had to go to all of them. I tried long. I tried. I was afraid of shorting me. And I was like, Man, I can blow up quick. I never shot it. I never shot it. I was I was using ETrade just give me some Long’s man, long in premarket login at the open logging getting dumped on but I believe that’s part of the journey man. But my issue was risk management I was using too much to figure out what was working for me so by going to all those setups like I was buying breakouts that I was men shorting, shorting parabolic setups, things squeezing up not knowing where my stop is in so I had to go to all that and tracking you need to track I mean, you need to track your setups you need to track everything you do. So at the end of the day, I review everything I do. I’m like, what work I keep what didn’t work. I don’t even look at it. I just kept doing like working. And eventually I found out that most of my gains were coming from broken stocks in pre market and bouncing, shorting on bounce. I add a very good feel for that, and channel trading during the long. I’m good at that too. But most of the The bulk of my money comes from like shorting broken stocks and low hanging fruits. In the first few days, one set up, I’m tracking him to get used to. But I haven’t had it in my playbook yet. But that’s something I’m learning. So to figure out what works for me is tracking, you have to, I went to all of it, I’ve lost on all of them. And by tracking what made the most and what I was more comfortable with, then I just stick with it. I just stuck with it and get rid of the rest. I can get the rest later, you know, first bounce and all that.
Eliminate Everything That You’re Bad At
Harry 15:35
That’s kind of what I did as well with logging because like with logging, I know what types of setups like I’m good at. And like me, and James and I have talked about this like multiple times, but you know, you kind of find what you’re good at and what kind of works for you. And then it just becomes kind of a process of just eliminating everything out. That you’re that you’re bad at, right. You know, like, if you’re, you know, you’re shorting a broken stock, you’re not going to be like, oh, let’s let’s short this hot chick premarket. Right, you know, but I think that there’s also like a thing and like I talked about this a lot where like, shorts loves to that kind of like attention and that kind of like, you know, top ticking and whenever but if you can just short the broken stocks, like you can pull super, super consistent gains, instead of just trying to be the hero trying to top tech trying to get that very top of the parabolic and yeah, it looks cool on Twitter, but like, you know, for your for your growth as a trader and like, as far as like keeping your trading account alive, that might not be the most sustainable thing, you know?
Olivier 16:37
Well, yeah, for real. And one thing that helped me a lot was I don’t post anything else. I don’t, because like the same thing I put in my profile, like keeping that white belt mentality. It’s like, I know how I was as a beginner man. I mean, I would see those guys posting big profits. And I would make my little like, 50, whatever. 100. And I’ll be like, Man, I would feel depressed, that I’m not living up to those guys. I mean, and then that’s why I don’t post I post my charts, because I know how it made me feel man put me in a wrong mindset to try to chase profits. And that’s the wrong thing. You cannot be chasing profits. I mean, you cannot you need to take what your strategy your processes giving you a That’s it, man. Yeah. That’s why Alex I look at his p&l. I mean, I check it just as motivation be like, Alright, man, that’s where you can go. But I don’t let it affect me at all it used to in the past. So when I went dark, last, I caught all of that. I mean, I just just focus on me completely. And yeah, and that was the result.
James 17:37
A lot of new traders, man they get they get intoxicated with like profits, and they, they see others PNLs. But like, they don’t know. And I think what what guys forget is like, they don’t know, what that person went through to get there. You know, like, like, Alex has been trading a long time to eight years. And like, you know, two or three of those years, like, they were just like normal days and stuff like that. And just he took we talked he talks about all the time, like all the losses he’s taken to learn to like, what he teaches, all of us now would bow is like, you know, like, people don’t see that stuff. They see the book and the nice car, they see like, all that shit. But like, everyone has that struggle. So I think that’s a really key lesson to remember. Like, like, that’s why like, I post p&l a lot now because like, I think people should remember to, it’s like you should be proud of of where you are in your process. Even if it’s small right now, like don’t let that like this isn’t like a drug addict, beating contest. You know, whatever. It’s this is like, this is like, just show up, dude, you trade your process. And like, I like that you just kind of put your head down and you’re like, This is what my process is giving me right now. And like, this is what I can get to but like, I’m not rushing it. I think that’s really, really important. Like and so I guess my question now is like, where How was your trading? Been in the past? You know, couple months? He says consistent, but I guess what’s been what’s been your, your best strength? And I guess what are your weaknesses right now?
Olivier 18:56
All right, my best strength was the stock selection. I found that I was getting better when my the stuff that I was watching. They were on Alex’s watch list. And Tom’s watch list and the levels I was looking at were the exact same. Alright, that’s progress. I mean, that’s that. And then what I’m working on. Let’s see, I’m working on a few things bettering my entries with more size. Because I find like, I usually don’t get like up to half size or never get full size, which is hard to do. I guess. I know how to pick my exits. I mean, I found I have a strategy for that work. And because from tracking I know where to expect the setups to go, because I track all of it, man. I mean, I’ve like sheets there. So I can pick my exits. But it’s the entry that I get FOMO sometimes, yeah, so that’s something I’m working on for real, like the FOMO side. but a video that I saw that really, really changed my mentality this summer was from a what’s his name? A Mark Douglas. He wrote the discipline trader. Yeah. And what he said was to take him to abilities. I don’t think in terms of in terms of setups, if they’re going to work on that anymore, I think of okay, if I take this set up 20 times 14 out of 20, I will be profitable. But I don’t know which one of those 14 is going to be? Yeah, it might be this one. Or it might be this one, but I don’t know. So I cannot be attached to the outcome of any single trade. I just need to take it and accept the risk. So that really changed my mind. And I was like, Yo, once I got that address, attack, our attack. I mean, I still mess it up. I attacked it. I lost, it’s okay. It’s part of it. So yeah, that that change, man, that really, really changed me.T
he Importance of Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Harry 21:00
Yeah, I think that is, that’s really key because like, you know, I obviously work with like, a tonne of long trader. So like, it’s not like we’re like DMing a bunch, because like, I’ve long and short. But you know, there’s a tonne of people who are who are longing. And they’re like, because the stock is easy to borrow, it has to go up and the ticker will be broken, beaten down, you know, an absolute shit ticker. And you know, just way under VWAP. And I’m like, bro, just because it’s easy to borrow does not mean the chart is right does not mean the distance from View app is right does not mean we’re getting enough volume for this thing to even run. And when you have those kind of like probability conversations like, like, how does this paint the picture? How do all these things add up? When you have that kind of conversation with people? I think their eyes open a little bit because they’re like, shit, man, I thought because it was easy to borrow. You know, we were gonna get this big spike. And yeah, easy to borrow stocks, generally they do trap. But you’re always going to get that, like you said, one out of 14 or whatever, that doesn’t work or two out of 14. That doesn’t work. Right. And yeah, I think that that’s definitely a big point. And key, because we’ve seen a tonne of like, hard to borrow stocks run as well, right? We went through that little hard to borrow sector where if it was hard to borrow, we’d get these spikes all the way up, and like they’d be sustained a little bit, and then they’d go back down again, right? So anything can happen in this kind of market.
Olivier 22:29
Into the pumpers, man, I mean, those guys, those guys, it’s another level. I mean, I’ve never seen it like that. This is like something else, man. So you need to be aware of.
James 22:39
Yeah. I think I think new traders, especially as a short, I think this is like, I think a lot of things that we’ve talked about in the past, like a lot of like, struggles, like they really focus on like Long’s too, but like with shorts, like, I think the probability idea is so huge, because you know, how many DMS I get, they’re like, why did you short VWAP. And I go, Well, I mean, probability is like, you know, nine times out of 10, it’s going to reject view up here on this kind of setup. And the one time it doesn’t, I’m going to stop out. And I think as a short, it’s scary, because the idea is the stock can continue to go up. Same thing, like when you’re shorting a bounce, no broken stock. How did you feel confident to sizing this line? How’d you feel about it to do this? Yeah, because it’s probability. And I think I think newer traders, like, I like that you’ve hit a lot of good points. And I think that that is really key to just everyone’s so scared to try a setup that they know works, but if you know what works nine times out of 10, like if you go to a casino, and you sit on the roulette table, and you know, nine times out of 10 number 45 is gonna hit. I mean, you’re gonna probably bet 45 Every time like, you’re gonna you’re gonna make the bed the one time it doesn’t fuck it, whatever. But I really liked that dude, I love your mentality. That’s your fucking badass.
Olivier 23:48
I mean, I get I get the newbies man, I get the beginners, for sure. Because there’s one thing you cannot teach any experience. Yep, dude. A lot of those things I’m talking about. I have to learn them to experience bow talks about them. You guys talk about it. But dude, if I didn’t go to it, I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t stick the way it stuck. You know? It’s a belief for me. So I believe it. Before I learned it, but I didn’t believe it. I was like, maybe it can bounce. But now I just truly believe it. So I just take you know, so, I mean, for beginners say just, yo, save your charts, man. Save your charts. Review them every day, on the weekends when you have time to see the patterns. So that when you see it, you just react in and Yeah, and just be patient and don’t rush it like this thing is tough. Dude. That’s the toughest thing. I mean, I can’t even express it. It’s so tough. Yeah, yeah, but I hope the juice is worth the squeezing.
Advice for New Traders
James 24:51
I was gonna ask her like if he had any like last advice. I feel like that’s such a good note to fucking like, close shop on those that was pretty solid. And you’ve hit some really good points and I think all new traders are gonna get a fuck tonne from this I’m super excited for this one dude and I think I think you will fucking a sec future like I seriously like yeah he he hit us up before he said he was like kind of nervous to come on like you just giving the best interview by far that I think we’ve done to be honest I fucking love this so thank you for coming on man I know we’re gonna have you back at some point.
Olivier 25:29
Yeah man I appreciate it definitely man looking forward to it. You know I spoke to you guys I see you guys in chat and you know let’s keep following the process and then because it works okay.