Trade Momentum In Gaps

she associates with large institutional participation. Her approach can be applied to day trading, swing trading, longerterm investing and options with a particular emphasis on identifying where uh what what she calls power money uh may be flowing. And with the September and October earnings season approaching, Melissa believes traders should be preparing now for the potential moves that earnings can create. Oh, we're excited about this. So, everyone, please welcome Melissa Armo. >> Hi, can you hear me? Hey Melissa, we can hear you. >> Wonderful. Thanks for having me. Just want to see here where do I see questions from people? Under chat or questions? >> Um, it would be under questions. >> Okay, great. And how long do I have to speak to here today? >> Uh, minutes. So, you have until three. >> Three o'clock. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Great. Thanks so much for having me. Welcome everyone. Today I'm going to talk about trading the side of institutional money and the side of momentum. For those of you that don't know, I appear on TV. I talk about the stock market. I talk about the economy. I talk about really what's happening right now for you to make money today. If you have questions, you can email me at melissthetockswish.com. You can also call me at 9293200gap if you have questions. I live in New York City and um you can follow me also on X Facebook or YouTube. So again, fall is coming. I actually took a walk in Central Park this morning. It was 63 degrees. Uh and I really felt like, oh gosh, fall is almost here. One of the things about fall that's going to be very exciting for the market is that we have a big Fed meeting coming up in September. And based on the statements from Friday from the new Fed chair, I really think the possibility that they could raise rates. That's going to create a lot of volatility in the market. And I will tell you right now that I actually mostly short. I will go long, but I mostly short. Uh we shorted Marll. Actually, we did a put in Marll on Friday. You can take a look at that chart. If I have time at the end, I'll bring it up. But even in a bullish market, you can short. And the reason that I like to short so much is because stocks fall faster than they rally. So, we've been, you know, going the whole year and we've been celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States. And when I talk to people and I go to different celebrations in New York City, you know, one of the reasons that people love to trade the US stock market is because you have the freedom to trade the market from anywhere in the world. All you need to know is how to trade. You need a computer and you need charts and you need an account. Now even you can trade on your own with a small account and you can trade on margin with less than 25,000. That started a couple months ago and it really has opened up a whole wide world for people who want to trade the market. Years ago you used to need 25,000 to have margin. Now you could open up account with two grand and have four to one margin. So people are interested in making money even if they have a full-time job that they love and they don't want to trade full-time. you can trade in the side for extra money. Why? Because financial freedom means peace of mind. And so again, for me personally, when I speak on TV lately, I've been saying I think that the inflation numbers are too high. Again, I think they're going to raise rates. I think inflation still too high. Yes, we're saying, well, it's coming down. I still think the cost of things are very high. So for people, they need to have to find ways to make money to cover those costs. And ultimately, money equals freedom. I mean, that's how I look at it. Yes, you can buy nice things when you have a lot of money, but really it gives you freedom and peace of mind. So again, how can you make your dream of becoming a successful trader come true? Well, you have to learn what to do. If you're gambling, you're not going to do well as a trader. If you have no strategy, you're not going to do well either. So, the crux of the problem for many many traders is they trade the market, they take trades, they risk money. Uh they take ideas from strangers online having no idea why that stranger suggested that pick in the first place. But really, many people do not have a winning strategy or any strategy at all. And this is why many traders fail. So, this is really the crux of the problem. I've been teaching people for 15 years. I've been trading for almost 20, if you can even believe it. And all the people that I talk to, they always say the same thing. They tell me they're buying support. That's not a strategy. That is not a strategy. Why? because it's not going to work all the time because there's a million support levels in a chart. How do you know which one's going to hold? How do you know which one's going to fail? Well, you don't. Okay, with any level of conviction. So, I developed a system when I started trading where I could find just one good pick a day. And I knew that if I could find one good pick a day, I could make money. And then I started doing options. So, then I did options and would hold the pick for longer in an option. And I do day trades. But I developed the system with the idea for myself to trade myself. And so I developed the checklist where I go through and I rate the gap using 26 points in a chart. And if the chart rates 20 points or more, then I'll take the trade in the direction that the stock is gapping. So I only do gaps. We're going to talk about what that is in a minute. But getting back to what I was saying, you got to have a strategy. So for me, my strategy is gaps. And I don't just do any gap at all. I don't short every bearish gap. I don't go long every bearish gap. I don't short every bullish gap. I don't uh go long every bullish gap either. In fact, I can try to pull up right now the more bell. Can you see my chart here? Let's pull this up here. >> Yeah, if we could see six different charts >> since I'm talk just mentioned the Marbell. So, >> yeah, Marv >> here. Marll had earnings and this is a gap. Okay. So the stock closed whatever it was the 27th at 24145 open in the morning boom this was Friday the 28th and it opened at 22525. So this is a gap. A gap is between the close and the open. This is a bearish gap. There are also bullish gaps. Here's a bullish gap where the stock closed at one price at 19377 then open at a higher price at 2101. Now again we're talking about Marbell here from Friday but we did a put in that. We did a put You could be out or you could still be in it. Okay, I did it for the Friday expiration of September 4th. I can't even believe it's almost September. Um, but anyways, this is a gap. So, you say, "Well, why didn't you go long here? This is a gap on support." Again, it's not that easy. That's why people often fail. And you can't go long support all the time or short resistance all the time. It's just simply simply not going to work. Um, and we'll talk about that more in a minute here. But getting back to what I was saying, one of the reasons I'm successful is I'm very, very consistent with what I do. I've been online here with Anthony before giving discussions and lectures a couple times a year. And I always talk about the same thing. I always talk about gaps. I always talk about shorting. I always talk about how important it is to be consistent. I'm not jumping around doing whatever the get-richqu thing is, whether it's Bitcoin or this or that. I'm just do gaps and I trade stocks and companies that you know you've heard of. You'll get filled in them. They have volume. And again, now that it's opened up a market where you can trade on margin and you can do options, too. My god, they have they have Monday, Wednesday, Friday options now, which they didn't used to have. They have Monday, Wednesday, Friday options at Apple. They have daily options now when the QQQ is on the spot, which is great. So, I mean, there's no excuse for anyone to say, "Well, I don't have enough money to trade." That's not true. You could have a small account and trade. And if you have a lot of money, you're not going to make money if you don't have a good system and if you're not consistent with what you do. So, you got to have good results. And to have good results and win, you got to have a good strategy. So, this was one that we did. This was 825. This was just the last week we did DKS. Stock closed up here, gap down, open, rallied, fell. Kind of funny when I looked back on this. This went fell off a cliff. I got out of this. It's so funny. And it fell like $15 through where I got out of it. But I entered it as a short. This was a margin trade at 14340. Got out at 1458, made 366. It was a good trade. It was a good pick. I picked it based on my rating system that this would follow through to the downside. Again, this is Dick Sporting Goods and it had earnings and it had a gap. So, this was Monday to Tuesday, but I kind of laughed because I'm like, "Oh my god, I should have held it all the way down." I typically day trade and I'm done in the morning. So, I like to be done fast by 10:00 a.m. the latest, but this fell all day. This is a great example of followthrough and we're talking about trading the side of momentum. This is a great example of momentum. The momentum in DKS was what? To the downside. So if you went long here, you lost. Okay? You flat out lost. You had to short it. Another one we did was Meta. This was 817. This was two weeks ago. Stock closed here, gap down again. Here's the momentum. This red bar depicts what? It depicts selling. So if is falling, you have to be short or you could buy a put. Again, a put is an option. It's a fixed risk, okay? Which you would choose the date. And again, I trade options based on momentum. So again, you have to be short because if you're long, you're going to lose here. So we did a day trade in this. 58160 was the entry. Exited at 567. This was a huge trade. I did hold this one a little bit longer. Made 36,500 in one trade in one day. Why? Because look from tip to tail at the size of the bar. You only need one trade like this a day to make money. That's all you need. And that's why you don't have to trade all day and do a million things. And if you take less trades, guess what? You're going to have less losses. You know what I mean? You'll have less losses. So, it's about finding the good one. So, really, one quality strategy is all you need to pay yourself in a regular basis. Knowing one good strategy you could replicate over and over for profits really can change your trading world. I think a lot of people that trade, they know that they can make money in the market. They probably made money and lost money or taken other classes. They know it can be done, but people never really click or gravitate with a good system. And so they never stick on one system or stay with one system and people jump around too much. Do you know what I mean? That as a result of that they lose. And then as people lose money, they lose conviction that they can do it. They lose confidence in themselves and they lose conviction in the market. And then, you know, I've heard this people say, "Oh, the market's right." No, the market is just doing its thing. You know what I mean? It's there every day and you can go after it every single day and make money. You just have to know what you're looking for and what to do. Okay. So anyways, the market can offer you a real lifelong career if you have a strategy that makes money consistently. Professional gaps are high in campaign strategy. So you can unlock the keys to your personal profits in the market by learning how to find momentum picking one stock a day. And I do this again based on my gap system. So gap trading really is where the real money moves momentum of the market take hold. Trading gaps makes it possible to trade for a living. And actually, uh, one of the other ones we did, now this was a long, um, we did crowd, let's pull this up here. We went long this, it was Thursday. Show you this, even though I do prefer to to short. Look at this. This was a bullish gap. Stock closed here at 18918. Stock gapped up here and open at 208.25. We did calls. This is an example of momentum. Why? From tip to tail, the low was 20610, ran all the way up to 229 and change. That's what you need. That's how you make money. Again, whether you did as a day trader, whether you did as an option. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful move. Look at that. So, that's an example of a long. But again, it's power. So, what is a professional gap? A professional gap is a gap that moves in the direction of the gap. It is called a professional gap because professional traders and investors are making and creating the gap. In the case of a bullish gap, professionals are buying the stock, therefore the stock moves higher in the trading day. In the case of a bearish gap, professionals are shorting the stock, therefore the stock moves lower on the trading day. Um, someone's asking about Microsoft. I don't know if that was a question for the last guy that was here or me. Um, I'll give you my thoughts on Microsoft. I actually think Microsoft is a good long. So I disagree with the previous presenter. This is this is a beautiful show of strength. This is this is a good long here. You know, assuming the market doesn't fall. If the market falls and fails and falls like it did Friday and continues lower, nothing will survive and nothing will hang on. But barring that, if that doesn't happen, Microsoft actually is a great long here. This is a beautiful trade. You could have gone long at all last week. So this is an example actually of multiple professional gaps that are made and it's where the stock has made a turnaround and is getting bought with institutional money. Remember what is institutional money? Institutional money is money that's made with big professional traders, hedge funds, large banks. You want to be on the side of that money. Again, you want to be on the side of that because that's how you're going to make money trading. You follow me? So I name my gap rating system the golden gap because finding gaps are rate high per my system. It's like finding gold. Okay. So golden gaps are professional gaps. They're gaps that have a high odds of working on the day in the correct direction of the gap with large momentum to move. Now I was just talking about the market. The market gapped up and failed failed on Friday. That's not a good sign for the market. Again the market did not like what uh the new Fed chairman said on Friday. whether or not we have any momentum or move in the next two weeks because we're coming to the Labor Day holiday. I don't know. We might have some movement this week um because we have some data points out this week, but then we're getting into the holiday. Labor Day is late this year. It's the following Monday. But again, barring that, barring the market, you know, not falling off the cliff, you know, there are stocks that you would want to look at and see, oh, are these continuing higher or are they continuing lower? Okay, so again, how did I know how to do DKS or even the crap or the Marll. I understood what to do. I looked at the gap. I went through my system. Again, it's a checklist. It's something that I teach and you can learn. It's not something just arbitrary. It's something I do and it helps me make a decision to take the trade and put my own money at risk. You know, a lot of people don't know what to do and then they have a hard time taking risks. Then people go into fear. They're afraid to take risks, but that's the only way you can make money in the market. So, it's very, very, very important to actually have what I call 100% conviction that you want to do it. Meaning that it's crazy if you don't because you actually could make money doing it. You know what I mean? There was another one we were doing. Now, we've backed off this. This is a watch for this week. If it falls through, I did not do this Friday. Let's try to have a little bit of a rally Friday. This is CVX. has been doing Chevron. Oil has been running up the majority of this year because of the conflict with the Iran war. So, we did the 195 calls. It expired on the 14th. We did this back on the 10th. This was a nice chart. So, here was the gap right here. Stock closed here, gapped up again. We're talking about momentum. In this case here, the stocks getting bought. So, you'd want to be long it. Okay. People were buying this and it worked. So, this was really cheap. $135 sold at 350 made 159% I'm I've been trading like I said for almost 20 years so I risk an advanced risk so 9450 risk made 15,50 what if you risked a smaller amount could have risked 1350 10 contracts you could have risked five could have taken one risk $135 the point is you would have made money okay you would have turned over your profit got in and out date two so again if I do an option I'm looking for the momentum I'm not necessarily holding it till the last day of expiration ation. Any questions about that or anything I just said here? Okay. So, how do I choose what to do each day? I go through a checklist. That's how I stay consistent. I'm also consistent with my risk. So, I'm not risking $1,000 on one trade, 5,000 on another, 3,000 another. Your results will be all over the place. Then you could take, you know, two good trades, have one winner and one loser, and one the winner could be a huge winner. You could be upside down if you risk too much or the risk wasn't equal in the loser one. So, you have to pick an amount of risk you're you're okay with that you feel confident you could risk and you can continue to take multiple trades throughout the week and that you don't be afraid and you don't want to kill it and you got to give trades a chance to work. So, when I started out trading, I wanted to trade full-time because I was doing mortgages. I wanted a new job, a new career, and then I threw myself into trading, but at that time, I didn't know what to do. It took me about three years to figure it all out. But I have people with me. Some are full-time, some are retired, some are part-time traders. Everybody's a different story in a different phase of life um in a different age group. So, whatever works for you, but like I said, I only trade in the morning for the day trades. And the options, the newsletter that I have, they go to your email directly. So, the consistency factor, like I've been talking about, it's looking for the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, but in different charts. And again, the rating system has to be there where it gets the point number. That's the only reason to do it. Otherwise, it may reverse or it may not work at all or it may not move. Okay? The only way you can make money in something is if it moves. You know, it's going to be hard if you're just scalping, scalping, scalping because you'll make 10 cents and you'll lose 50 cents and you'll be upside down. So, I don't scalp. I'm really looking for a good move of a dollar or more in every single trade I take or one to one. Okay, any questions here so far? Okay, anyways, getting back to what I was saying, you need the right tools to be successful and you need good results. What do I mean? I mean, you have to have more winners than losers. Sometimes you'll have a big winner, but that's not necessarily something that you can always plan. You just flat out need more winners than losers or you're not going to make it and you'll get frustrated. And again, your confidence level will take a toll, too. And then you'll tend to make bad choices. That's where people get in the fear mode and then they get greedy. You know what I mean? So, anything that can put the odds in your favor to trade will give you an edge. The 26 point golden gap rating system gives you an edge. It reads the price of the gap and using technical analysis on an advanced level pin points which stop to trade that day and in what direction. The high probability is in the quality and detail in the rating system. Again, 26 points is an enormous amount of detail. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to rate one gap if you're new. It takes less than five minutes once you become experienced with the system. So, this is what I do every day. I get up and rate the gap. Go through the points and rate it. If it rates 20 points or more, then I'll take it in the direction of the gap. Again, if it doesn't, then I don't do it. So, if I don't get any good gaps, then I don't trade anything that day. Or if I get three, I could do all three. But I'm usually looking for the best best possible pick that I can find each day. And that's what I like to focus on. And then I then I put on the size. Okay. So again, it makes it very easy where you're not, you know, going in and out of a million different things if you're only focusing on one thing a day. So the checklist is what tells me what to look for in the stock that it's going to move in the direction of the gap and it's going to have the big momentum that I want that I could take whether I want to take small size or whether I want to take big bank size that it'll be worthwhile to take the trade. Now, I started talking about this earlier where I was saying I prefer to short. Why? Because stocks fall faster than they rally. Like I said, the market fell on Friday. So, I don't know where we go on Monday. We'll see. You know, again, we're getting into a week here right before the holiday, but the market kind of panicked a little bit on Friday with the new Fed share statements. So, things like to fall very quick when they're going to, whereas there really isn't There is panic buying, but it's very it's so rare that you almost never see it. In fact, I can't think of anything really off the top of my head that I could say was the last time I saw panic buying. I've seen it before in stocks over the 20 years I've traded, but it's rare. That's almost like an emergency where everybody wants to rush in, rush in, rush in, and it's so rare that you almost never see it. And you really don't even see it that often with the market. Whereas if people are in stocks and something happens again, it could be a war or could be a plane crash or could be earnings whatever and then there's an emergency the stock can sell off and it can sell off very very quickly and that creates the panic. Okay. So I like to trade and get in and out of trades fast and because stocks fall faster than they rally I like to short. I've also, you know, found over the years a lot of traders don't know how to short or they're not very good at shorting, are they? They prefer to go long. Again, I don't know why. I honestly don't know why. I guess it's just the nature of human nature. People like the idea of buying low and selling high. But actually, you're better off and you'll make more money trading if you trade with momentum. Do you know what I'm saying? So, here was a short we did. We did Meta. We did the 575 puts. This was back on 17th. And we did the expiration date. the 21st. So, let's go over this one here. 17th was here. Oh, this was the day we did the day trade. So, we also did a put stock closed here, gap down, open, fell, closed here, gap down, fell off a cliff. Boom. So, again, see where it was. Here's where it opened, dropped, dropped, boom, and came all the way down here to 540. So, this fell beautifully just within two days. Again, if you didn't want to do the day trade that I talked about because you were like, "Oh my god, that's too expensive." Or whatever, you could bought a put which I don't think these were expensive though honestly but we did it away from the strike here because I did the 575s open at 590 cost was 625 sold at $31. This is a huge trade huge in and out day number two you're out returned investment was 396%. You only need a couple of these. You know you only need a couple of these a week. If you did two you would have made $4950. This is also a good way for people to try to grow their small accounts. Lots of times people are in trades or in other accounts and they want to try to grow them, grow them, grow them. Trading, doing overtrading isn't going to help you grow your account. If anything, you should be super duper extra careful with trades that you're taking. If you have a small account, you should really be picking. But, you know, again, because you want to grow it. If you have a $5,000 account, you're trying to grow it to 10. If you have 10, you're trying to go up to 15 and then 20 and so on and so forth. So anyways, how do I determine what the smart money is doing? I use my tools. It's my rating system. And again, it's based on techn technical analysis in the gap. So I find gaps and rate them using this checklist. The checklist tells you what to look for in the price of the stock. Who is in control? The bulls or the bears? Okay. If the bulls are in control, you want to be long. the bears are in control. You want to be short, okay? That's the only way to make money. So really, training on the side of institutional money is how you're going to find momentum, how you're going to get the big move, and then you're going to get the direction right too where you're not going to get run over because again, you're trying to win. You don't want to lose, which means you don't want to be against institutional money. See what I'm saying? Now, again, with the new Fed chair, meeting in a couple of weeks and a lot of people think that they're not going to raise rates. The market clearly thinks that after the last several months, but I'm not so sure. So again, if you're someone that wants to trade news or fundamentals, that's great if it matches up with the technicals, but I'm watching the technicals. Okay? So I look at charts. I'm trading based on technical analysis, but it's technical analysis in the gap. But that's how I'm reading who's going long, who's shorting, and what's really happening. What's the underlying uh momentum in that stock per set. A lot of people again want to trade the news. Like for example, everything that's happening with the war, people think it's over. I don't think that's over. I don't think it's over at all. I think it could even go into next year into 2027 now at this point. So, I mean, again, if the technicals and the fundamentals match up, fine. But what if they don't? You got to go with the technicals. You got to go with the price. You got to go with what you've seen right in the chart that's live. So, the rating system that I use as a tool, and I use this each morning to determine what stock to trade and when. It's a very useful tool in any market, but particularly in this type of market. Um, it also can help you decide if you should exit alone. Okay? It is a very useful tool. It takes the guesswork out of your trading. Again, that's what you want to do. You don't want to be worrying about what should I do? Should I do this? Should I do that? You know what I mean? You're going to be all over the place. Um, Anthony, are you there? Did I lose my screen? Did something happen? I just saw my screen went to a little dot. Are you there, Anthony? Can anybody Everybody see my screen? It looks like it just got smaller for some reason. Anthony must be gone. Brian, can you see it? Okay, that was weird. Anyways, getting back to what I was saying, in order to become successful in the market, you really have to have a specialty. So, I got into shorting. I got into gaps and I got into reading institutional money or what I call power money in the market. This brings momentum and opportunity because again all these ones I was showing you here was opportunity. Whether you went long in the crown um or again whether you did something and you shorted the Marll like we did there was opportunity there to the downside. Again, got to get the entry right, got to get in right, got to get out right. you're always always always looking to something to do it where you have to be with whoever is pushing the stock's direction. So sometimes the stock's direction is going up, sometimes it's going down. Again, I prefer to short, but I will go long. Like I told you, I did the I did the crowd long. So, you know, you're here today. I listen to lots of people since this morning. If you've been here all day, I I want to say, you know, that train education is very important. I took one class and from that class when I first started out 20 years ago, I learned the basics of technical analysis. I learned I learned a bunch of stuff though that really I didn't learn how to make money, but I knew that I could with technical analysis. I think every class you take, you take something away from it. It may not be enough for you to make money, but you have to take away what you can from each thing that you do. I think what happens is people have high expectations sometimes with certain classes that they take, especially for the for the price that they're paying if it's something cheap. You have to be realistic when you decide you want to do this. There's two ways to go about it. You can go about it the same way I did. I took my own money. I developed my own system. It took me three years and it cost me a lot of money to get to where I am today. Or you can pay someone to learn from them. And that may involve a series of classes because you may not necessarily pick the very first class you ever take and learn how to trade. And for many people, it's just not that's not their program. They take one and they don't learn anything or then they have to take another one or they find something else. And it's a journey. It's a journey. But I will say that trading education is important and having a mentor is important to call the trades like I called the trades I'm talking about live in the room. Far too often, I think traders just don't understand exactly how important education is. And the fact is, it's okay to ask for help. If you need help and you don't know and you're not doing well, you're losing, it's okay to admit that what you're doing isn't working. Because the sooner you come to terms with reality, if you're losing money, that you don't know what you're doing, and that you need help, guess what? The faster you can turn it around. And you can turn things around very quickly. very quickly you get on the right path and you're making money Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Even having one week or two weeks or one month of substantial gains really will change your attitude will change your account because your account's going to look bigger and then you'll be like, "Oh my god, I can really do this." You know, for a lot of people, it's a it's an attitude adjustment, too. So, again, it's about the focus. I can't stress enough that you can trade with a small account. It does it's not about risking a lot. It's not about gambling. It's It's not about trading all day. It's about focus and consistency. So, you have to be very practical and professional when you do this and take it seriously. You can't just say, "Oh, I'm going to take this trade and kill it with a small loss and then jump into something else." That would drive me nuts. When I take something, I'm in it to win it and I put in the stop. So, again, let's talk a little bit about more what gaps are. So, my winning strategy is called Golden Gap, but what is a gap? A stop gap in the opening price today is different than the closing price of yesterday's trading. A gap is a break in price action from one day to the next. Simple. So again, here was a bullish gap we did when we went long CVX rally. You could have shorted this in the last week. We didn't do this, but you could have. So that close here, gap down, open, fell again. Oil fell in the last two weeks. We did some longs in here though. That did work. But this was a bearish gap. Talked about this already. DKS, this gap down, fell. Boom. That was a big one. So, we determine who is in control first and then I decide, do I want to do an option in it? Do I want to do a day trade in it? Do I want to do both? But it's all about getting the direction right? Because if you don't get the direction right, you're going to lose. Again, this was such a big move to the downside for Meta. Now, this pushed back and then they settled that lawsuit that was this week and then it gapped up and fell. But this was a beautiful, beautiful sell-off here. You know, these stocks that we're doing, these are big moves, huge moves. So, what is a golden gap? It's a gap that rates 20 points or more per the Golden Gap 26 point rating system. You take the trade in the direction of the gap. You do the trade as a day trade or an option. So, I'm preparing what I want to do and make my decisions way before the open. I go through the checklist. I might write 30 things or 20 things or 15 things. Depends how busy we are. Earning season is the busiest time. Like I said, fall is going to be a very busy season and earning season starts again at the fall. We're at the end of earning season now. Marll was earnings, but this is a tail end of earning season. But I get gaps every day. I can have news gaps, I can have sector gaps, I can gaps for the market. So again, I go through, see the gap, rate it, and then determine is institutional money going to continue this stock in the direction of the gap. If it is, I'm saying, okay, if it rates 20 points or more, it's going to have a lot of momentum. It's going to go and it's going to be profitable. Therefore, I'd want to do a put if it's gapping down or I want to short it as a day trade. But seeing this institutional money, seeing what it looks like is the benefit. Okay, that's how you win big on the side of power. I find that most people just don't, again, don't understand how important that is. It sounds very, you know, trading 101 that you got to get the direction right, but honestly, it really is that simple. You've got to get the direction right in the trade. You've got to be on the right side of power. If you're not, you're going to lose more than you win. If you are, you're going to win more than you lose. It's really is that simple. So, a lot of people, unfortunately, they'll just don't know how to read the the power. And and like I said, too many people are all over the place. So, I like gaps because they help me pick the direction, get a good move, and then whether you have a small size or a big size or do as a day trade an option, you can win. So, for me, it's all about the checklist. Again, this also helps me stay organized. A lot of people trade, they're all over the place. They're not organized. You want to be organized. So the rating system helps me determine who is in control. And and then I narrow it down and say, "I'm going to do this trade today. I'm going to do that trade today. I'm going to do one. I'm going to do two. I'm going to do an option." Whatever. Again, I'm always looking for the bears or the bulls. One of the reasons people are confused right now about the market, you could say the market's in a range. The market's in an uptrend. I'm talking about the QQQs, but it has not made a brand new alltime high yet. Again, the gap up Friday that found and fell was not a good sign for the market. You know, barring the fact that we're going into the holiday period, which is tough to trade around the holidays because it's usually low volume. You know, it wasn't a good sign that the market did that. So, people are confused. If you're someone that trades futures, you're getting smacked around in the last several weeks. Actually, again, the QQQs have not made brand new alltime highs. So, I mean, again, I might trade the market sometimes, but I trade specific stocks usually on most days. So, I'm looking for a big flow of money that's going in a certain direction. That's how I make the decision that I want to do it. And don't forget, institutional money is in charge of the market and stocks at all times. And I'm looking for the quality. Now, when I'm in the room, I call the trades live in the room. If you join and you're in the room, I call the trade. I set the entry, the exit, the stop, and we take the trade and I say where I'm getting out and you can take the trade with me. But, you know, I don't think it's hard to follow me in the room. I'm only usually doing one trade a day, maybe two. It's really about trying to get done fast and make the money as quick as we can in the morning and then I have the rest of the day to myself. So, the gaps again happen in the morning. You can have lots of gaps on any given day, but not all gaps are good. We're looking for gaps that really are important. They signify a change of direction or a bigger move in the same direction. So, you've got to understand which gaps are meaningful and which gaps are not meaningful in the market. like we had the gap up on Friday. I didn't go long the market. I didn't think it was going to follow through. I turned out being right. I didn't short the market though Friday. Why? Because we gapped up. So, I did not short it, but I didn't think it would follow through long. So, I didn't get caught in a long or I'm sure a lot of people did because we did gap up and we started to rally, but then we failed. When I heard the Fed statements in the morning, I thought I thought to me my my interpretation was that they're going to raise rates. That's that's was my interpretation and that's what I thought despite the data that we had the last two weeks. People kept saying, "No, they're not going to raise rates." Again, for sure, for sure, for sure. If anything happens in September where they raise rates, the market's going to react because there's it's built into the market right now that there will be no rate uh uh raise in rates at all in September. That is where the market's at. People are certain of that. I disagree. You know what I mean? I could be wrong, but again, I'm not long or short the market right now either way to see. But power money is in the market in a big way right now. Why? because I don't think the Fed's going to raise rates and people also think the war is over too and I don't think that's true either, you know. Um, so again going back to what I was saying, why is shorting the way to go for fast profits? Because of panic. And so think about it. It really and and you think about it and be intellectual about it. You're like, okay, this totally totally makes sense. I want to be long if institutional money is buying it. I want to short if institutional money is selling it. So, how do you make money? You make money in the market. Get organized. Say, "I'm going to do this many trades a week. I'm going to do options. I'm going to do day trades." You need a structure in place in order to make any money at all consistently. It's about the consistency that many traders lack in their system. Someone's asking about my win rate. My room rates around 70%. So, for every 10 trades you take with me, bigger seven are going to win and three are going to lose. And that's a that's a winning system. And then again, Many of the ones that win are more than 100%. So, it covers the losses and you're still ahead. If anyone tells you of 100% or 95% or anything like that, I'm telling you right now, that's not realistic. There's things that happen in trades sometimes it's out of your control where you're going to lose. So, prepare yourself for that. But you still have to have more winners and losers. That there that is hands down. But really, if you had a 51% win ratio, you'd be profitable. you'd be profitable if you size your trades consistently. I mean, I have a higher win ratio than that, but that's the truth. Again, a lot of people don't size their trades right. They'll risk $500 on one trade and 2,000 another trade. It'll kill a trade or, you know what I mean? People just do all kinds of crazy things, which they should not do. So, that was a good question though. So, I'm looking to measure gaps that have a high probability of directional bias for the entire day. Big move and an early setup in the morning and again create a money manage a, you know, plan for yourself. Say, "I'm going to make $1,000 this week, then I'm going to make $2,000 next week." I mean, you got to you got to sit down and act like this is your business and be serious about it. Again, a lot of people are not serious about their trading. I was very serious about it even when I started day one because I wanted to do it as a career. You know, I didn't know it was going to take me as long as it did to figure out what I was doing. I thought I could figure it out in six months. I figured I'm pretty smart. I could figure this out in six months. Well, it took me three years. So, I mean, the markets the market's a beast when you're going after you're trying to figure things out. But now that I know how to do it, trading is easy for me. Doesn't mean I don't have some days that are hard. Yes, some days are hard. But trading itself over the year, week over week, day over day is for the most part easy for me. So, it's experience and me doing this now for 20 years. So, if you're in a tough spot and you're feeling like the market is just, you know, gut-wrenching for you right now, but you don't want to quit, know that it'll get easier once you get into a system and start to make money. It's just for anybody that goes through this. So, the journey is different for everyone. Nobody starts out and starts training and starts making money right out of the g the gate. That's impossible. But you got to get realistic about what it takes to do it. The money, the time, and learning something good, you know? So, anyways, I go through the checklist and And I think learning is important because it helps people get conviction. You got conviction. You want to understand why. It's going to help you take the trade. It's going to help you hold it. It's going to help you be aggressive. So, it's great to have dreams. I had dreams that I wanted to train. You have to be realistic and grounded so you can attain them. It's like anyone that wanted to become an athlete. The US Open is uh in New York right now, Queens. I'm not going, but it's going on right now. uh you know people just don't become tennis stars you know without practicing practicing practicing practicing you know the people that got there that are playing at the US Open took a lot of money and a lot of work and a lot of time that's how it is you know so we're getting into the end of the year I can't believe it um and I'm getting ready for a big end of 2026 going enjoy Labor Day weekend picnics the end of the summer but think about what I said today you got to empower yourself to do well in trade. My class is a complete system where I learn the end where I'll teach you how you can figure out the entries and the exits and you will learn the 26 points which is my system and again the class is called the golden gap course. It's a full course in how to strategically find pick and place stocks that aren't professional bearish gaps. The class is not for a month. September, uh, it's the end of the month. September 26th and 27th, 9 to5. Class tuition is $69.99. Classes online. You can be anywhere in the world and take it. And I'm doing a huge Labor Day special, which is going on through Labor Day, which is late this year. It's September 7th for the bundle, which is all three classes, the Golden Gap, the options class, and the trends class. And if you sign up for the bundle which is $89.99 you will get all these classes are September in the end of September beginning of October you will get the trading free to the end of next year end of 2027 options newsletter and mark report free to the end of 2027 and two 1-hour mentoring sessions with me and again this is with the bundle package. This is the Labor Day special which ends on September 7th. Um Anthony put my email in there. Any questions from anyone? It's been a very good year. Things have been going very, very well. You have to be focused. We had a good week this week. Even though there wasn't that much to do, I narrowed it down to pick the right things. But that is how it is all the time. You have to pick the right things. Again, go back and look at the crowd that I showed you. You know, 100 shares when that ran all the way up. stocks that run 20 30 points in one day. You don't need to have a huge size. If you could afford to, you can, but there's real money to be made in the market if you're looking and following on the side of institutional money. Otherwise, you're getting chopped up to bits and pieces. And again, for the life of me, I'll never never know why people want to trade futures. I don't know the leverage in it, the cost to do it. I don't know. People think it's cheap, but the market has had no good trades the last few days in it and the last week in it. It's been ridiculously just going nowhere. So, the reason that I like to trade stocks is because there's so many stocks out there and there's so many things to pick from. Chances are I'm going to find a good one. You know, at least one good one a day and that's all I need. I think I ended on time here for the next person. Any questions here? Melissa, thank you for being here today. You're always so great at this. >> Oh, thanks Anthony. Thanks for having me. >> Yeah, that was a very interesting look at using gaps in volume to identify where institutional participation may be creating opportunities. Uh we appreciate the valuable insight.