I am a Retail Day Trader trading stocks from home, who made $1.6 Million on Gamestop (GME), the popular Meme Stock as seen on r/wallstreetbets. I am one of the most followed day traders on social media with over 48,000 followers on Twitter and almost 20,000 followers on Instagram. I've also made almost $5 Million Year-to-Date as of February 18th, 2021. Ask Me Anything.
As someone who did not come from money and started day trading with only $6,000 in 2011, I've always known the struggle to start from nothing. It is a widely known popular statistic that 95% of Day traders lose money. It is one of my goals to help as many people avoid being a part of that statistic as possible, and prevent becoming casualties of fiascos like Gamestop (GME).
Proof: https://madazmoney.com/pages/reddit-ama-proof-image
Broker Statement for Proof: https://madazmoney.com/pages/reddit-ama-broker-statement/also: https://madazmoney.com/pages/broker-statements-2021
Live Trading YouTube video documenting my largest GME trade for further proof (where I went from -$2 Million to +$1 Million in a couple hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFlzJqrFtlQ
KyleQuick01
How much money did you lose before you became profitable? And for someone who is down a lot still after 3 years what would you do to get out of the toxic state of mind
MadazMoney
Started with 6k in March 2011, turned it into 43k in just 6 months, proceeded to lose all but 7k in the next 3 months, had to take a mental break for 3 months, before regathering myself and coming back to finally focus on the right setups and develop a winning mindset, and then I proceeded to turn that 7k into 151k by March of the following year, and the next is history. I hope that answers it - if not, I have the full detailed story here, which hopefully helps answer your question more: https://madazmoney.com/story
MadazMoney
The current market conditions is allowing me to day trade very large positions so I plan on staying the course. Once the market liquidity dries out, I'll probably wire out a chunk of the account and put it in other things such as longer term investments, real estate etc...
ctsxfatal1
I've been following you for years now, just wanna say I've learned a lot from your YouTube videos and appreciate the content. I'm curious what your endgame is 10+ years from now? Do you still see yourself day trading or would you branch off into other things like real estate, etc.
MadazMoney
I love day trading way too much to ever stop. The allure of being able to make a boat load of money by clicking buttons in your underwear from the comfort of your own home can never be replaced or surpassed by anything else.
ZekesJeep
What do you typically look at when first choosing a stock to day trade? We always see lists of popular tickers being streamed on Twitter, but how do you choose which stocks you want to say trade?
MadazMoney
I use a scanner called Trade-Ideas where I can customize parameters I want to my liking to filter out the stocks I want to trade. Typically I like stocks that are large % gappers with big range and volatility.
dysfunctional_dist
What do you think the chances are that institutional short sellers will get caught in a squeeze the size of GME again?
MadazMoney
They will, but not to that magnitude, because they know what to expect now, so they will add new regulations to prevent that same exact scenario from re-occuring again.
MadazMoney
Please clarify, did you mean to ask how did I know how to play/trade it or how was I aware of it?
MadazMoney
It varies, sometimes its a couple 10 of's ks, sometimes it's couple 100's of k's, sometimes it's millions. Here's a good example of one in the millions range: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFlzJqrFtlQ
AfterSamadhi
What is your most profitable setup - daily / intraday?
What is your screening process in order to find that setup?
MadazMoney
I have two setups, washout long, panic-pop short, as far as screening process goes, it would be too hard to give a detailed answer, and this justifies a detailed answer - I've made a few videos about that should hopefully help you here - https://www.youtube.com/user/madaztrader/videos
mdreezy1
Hey Madaz, first and foremost I just want to say you're an inspiration and I consider to be the best trader I follow. I've dug through your old videos, even watched your Trade Ideas Summit 2018 interview, because I think you have one of the best understandings of the market. I truly think it takes a certain individual to trade successfully, and not many people have it, no matter how hard they try. I have a couple of questions:
- On a very general basis, what scanner do you use to trade small cap, and do the fundamentals of why a stock is moving influence the way you are going to trade it, or do you simply put the chart up and start to play it by the level 2?
- In regards to hidden sellers, aren't they just iceberg orders at a certain level, hence why you can't see them? Or are they also going through dark pools which is why you can't see them on the level 2?
- Do you think it's harder to read the level 2 on large cap stocks given the amount of market participants in stocks such as AMZN or NVDA?
Thank you Madaz!
MadazMoney
Hey sorry for the late response. Thanks for being a long time follower! To answer your questions
1) I use Trade Ideas as my scanner. Have been for 5 years and can't go a day without it. You can find videos on it on my YouTube Channel. Fundamentals do influence the way a stock moves but from a short term scalping time frame, not so much. If I'm going for a longer hold then I probably would put more emphasis on the fundamentals.
2) It could be a little but of both use. If it's constant walls, it's probably an iceberg order.
3) Yes and no. Large cap stocks have a lot more big players going on which makes it difficult to figure out the agenda of all the participants involved vs. small caps where there's usually just one big player rigging the action. But it's still doable as evidenced from my success trading stocks like TSLA, GME, TLRY etc...
Hope this helps!
Annual_Broccoli2453
what was your AHA-Moment/ turning point into getting profitable? Does it feel like a video game now that u make so much cash? thx u sir
MadazMoney
Definitely. It was taking a 3 month break after having taken my $6K account to $43K and then losing it back to $7K which allowed me to clear my mind and regather myself. Mindset is everything when it comes to day trading. The rest is just getting in enough screen time to be able to recognize the patterns when they come. The amount of screen time required will vary from person to person depending on their learning curve.
AdTraditional6382
Hello Madaz. How do you spread your risk per share? and how you abstract from the "numbers" with such a rapid increase in deposit? Thank you
MadazMoney
I always size my positions as much as the liquidity permits. The market in its current state is experiencing unprecedented levels of volume hence right now I'm able to trade with very large positions. This is why I'm able to manage risk better in these circumstances now because I'm able to get in and out of positions with relative ease.
ItsaFestivus
As someone who has been a position trader/investor for all of their life but has been wanting to get into day/swing trading recently, how would you recommend getting to where you are now? Always wanted to join your community but you’re a little too advanced. What path would you take if you were to do it all over again from the start? Many thanks!
MadazMoney
I would definitely watch my content which includes several live day trading examples so you can see the difference. between day trading and investing. Some of the concepts are similar but day trading is at a much faster pace as days can turn into minutes or even seconds.
I would also go to a website like Investopedia to read up on some of the terminology. Then once you're ready sign up for a demo account and practice with paper money.
MadazMoney
Everyone has been calling for a bubble for a year now and it hasn't happened so I'm not going to try lol just going to stay in my own lane and keep trading the volatility, whether it's bull side or bear side.
outoftime_x
How do you stay mentally composed when you're pulling in multi-six figure days every day. Has your lifestyle changed erratically? What does your family and friends think about you making a brain surgeons salary in a single day.
MadazMoney
I just treat each day as mutually exclusive of each other. The next day's outcome has no bearing on what happened yesterday. My lifestyle has not changed erratically yet but that's probably in part due to the pandemic and not being able to just travel everywhere and do crazy things. I don't tell my family and friends about my success because this isn't something that you'd want out there for obvious reasons.
MadazMoney
Pho is always good when you're sick or have a hang over but I also love Bun Thit Nuong, Com Tam, or Bun Bo Hue.
MadazMoney
No, I love Southern California too much to do that. The weather, the food, and of course the girls... 😉
RPBiohazard
If you want to stop people from losing money then why are you using your GME luck as a talking point? Tons of people got on the wrong end of the pump-and-dump, if you’re trying to talk about responsible safe investment then I wouldn’t go around telling people how rich you got off of GameStop.
MadazMoney
I didn't "get rich" off GameStop. I was already doing quite well before GameStop. I've been day trading for almost 10 years. GameStop was just an unprecedented golden opportunity that I took full advantage of as a day trader.
TheSuperSwordFish
What would be the best indicator with settings or support line you would recommend? Very cool of you to do this!
MadazMoney
I actually don't use very many indicators at all besides VWAP. Support and resistance levels are all manually drawn and extracted from intraday/premarket levels and daily levels typically. See this video: https://madazmoney.com/post/tutorial-how-to-do-easy-simple-stock-technical-analysis-madaz-style-sune-example-122215
Maximum-Recover625
Couple questions for ya if i may.
Where's the first place to start as a beginner with no experience or knowledge of trading/investing?
Also, if someone only has 1k to start with, which strategy would be the most efficient to build an account?
MadazMoney
I would save up more before starting. $1K is most likely going to get eaten alive by fees before you can actually do anything with it other than praying that you get lucky and hit a home run on your first trade. I started with $6K personally. If you want to just treat that as "play money" for shits and giggles that's completely on you. I know so friends that are throwing it on crypto or random stocks just to get the experience but if that's all you got to play with and you're out of the game if you lose it, I'd strongly recommend you save up a lot more before taking this seriously.
Previous-Bee2508
Now that you trade large size, how do you navigate liquidity issues? What are your favorite routes to use?
MadazMoney
I don't really run into many liquidity issues at all as I size proportional to the liquidity available. Route wise, I use ECNs to get rebates such as ARCA.
PaleBabyHedgeHog
How many times per day would you say you roll onto your back and jizz on your face? Im guessing at least 3-4 times per day?
Tntn13
What signals are your bread and butter when looking for entry/exit on a position? As well as direction?
Do you use TA? Or other signals?Thanks
MadazMoney
I watch the L2/Tape and see how the stocks behave around key support/resistance levels to gauge price action. You can see several examples of this on my YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/madaztrader
dysfunctional_dist
If you had $50k to invest on Monday where would you go with it and why? What are your top 8 stocks to go 5x-10x in 2021?
Thanks for taking the time to educate us
MadazMoney
I don't actually "invest". I just day trade the hot stocks of the day, take advantage of the volatility and I'm all cash by the end of the day.
MadazMoney
I set money aside for expenses, bills, taxes of course, but I try to keep as much as possible in my account so keep growing it as you know, in trading, you need money to make more money.
zjunkmale
First, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It’s appreciated. Here’s a question from my own angle of interest. About eight years ago I found out I was going blind. I turned my career toward accessibility. One of the (many) areas of the internet from which the disabled are barred is day trading (and related activities) especially via the popular apps. Have you ever considered taking advantage of your platform (your role as an influencer) to help champion equity of opportunity in your areas of subject matter interest/expertise? We can’t always solve for socioeconomic barriers, but given that apps are an entry point here, we can at least strive to remove obstacles to participation that originate there. Would love to hear your informal thoughts, however briefly. Thanks again.
MadazMoney
Hey thanks for the message and I'm sorry to hear about your condition. I actually haven't thought of this. Perhaps if you have any suggestions on how I could approach it, I'd be all ears.
MadazMoney
Paper handed portney over here is over a million dollars richer because he sold so I think he's doing just fine. 😉
MadazMoney
I'm a technical trader so I will answer this from a technical standpoint. I want to see relentless iceberg sell orders keeping the stock artificially down while breaking every support level without much of a bounce indicating very little demand to offset the dilution.
jh937hfiu3hrhv9
When you say made 1.6M, is that 1.6M cash or 1.6M in stocks? How much was converted to cash?
SamboAlexander
If you could sum up the most basic proven profitable strategy including, the time best frame to use, the indicators and the price action, what would it be ? Thanks!
MadazMoney
As simple as this sounds, the most basic profitable strategy in my opinion, is buying low, selling high and also the converse of that selling high and buying low (shorting). Mean reversion, basically is the name of the game. See my YouTube channel for examples of this type of trade over and over again http://www.youtube.com/madaztrader
big_beak7
Okay there Tim Sykes. Did you turn 12k into 1.6 mil? Next thing you know you will invest in hhgregg. LOL
ryancolebourn
Hey Max, can you please tell me the benefits of Centerpoint over Lightspeed? More shares to borrow? Other things too? Thanks.
MadazMoney
More shares to borrow, better platform, better customer service, better routes. Better everything basically.
thekid1398
Hey Madaz, thanks for doing this. Been following your YouTube for a while now.
On the L2s, what are you specifically looking for when you trigger a hot key?
For instance, on a washout long, to me it looks like you’re watching the ask decrease, and as soon as the ask goes back up in value, you trigger the hot key to buy. Vice versa on the short side.
Is that an accurate observation on my part?
Thanks man.
MadazMoney
Partially correct yes. I'm also looking for any hidden buyers to support the bid (for longs) and hidden sellers to stack the offer (for shorts). Also speed of the tape or order flow is important as velocity indicates more stop orders are being taken out indicating panic.
wheresindigo
Hey, nice AMA. I'm also a day trader and I listened to your CWT interview the other day. It seems like we have similar styles--primarily short term, lots of quick trades on highly volatile, lower cap tickers. Buying lots of quick pullbacks and flipping them for profit pretty in seconds/minutes.
I have a pretty high win rate but my wins are generally smaller than my losses. My profit factor is around 1.7. Do you happen to know your stats and are they similar? I've noticed that my losers tend to be bigger than my winners but I just have so many more wins that it just doesn't matter. A lot of experienced traders give the opposite advice--keep winners much bigger than losing trades.
I've also noticed that I tend to make money very consistently but when I have a losing day, it can be a little too big. Maybe 2-3 times a winning day. Just wondering if that's similar for you or not.
MadazMoney
My stats are posted on my twitter (www.twitter.com/madaznfootballr). I basically have a really high rate in but smaller r/R. The most important part though is since I rarely lose, I avoid the negative emotional effects of being red on a position the majority of the time.
StrangeCaptain
Day trading is stupid, this is a weird brag about making $5,000,000 and wanting to stop people from losing money.
here is a question mark?
MadazMoney
I got successful at something and simply want to share my knowledge to help others. I sincerely hope this isn't your general attitude towards life. Best of luck to you.
drago_must_break_you
What do you do to deal with boredom? Maybe not in the recent market because of how busy it has been, but I mean in general? Let’s say market opens, nothing’s interesting, and to prevent boredom trading, you do what? Shop online? Nap? Exercise?
MadazMoney
Because I'm based on the west coast and the market opens at 6:30AM, I just go back to sleep lol
Impressive_History23
Congratulations on your success. I have been following you and you really inspire me. When you had a $6000 account how big of positions were you talking? Were you using margin on every trade?
MadazMoney
I was trading OTC at the time where use of margin is not allowed but I wasn't afraid of going in big if an A+ setup presented itself. Having the guts to "go for it" when the edge is high is not for everyone (especially if you're not able to handle those type of losses financially) but I feel like it's a necessary evil if you're looking to grow your account exponentially very quickly, in a calculated manner.
misterhomebody
Hey madaz. Can you make a video going into detail on how to read level 2 with algo/manipulator spoofing and knowing what their agenda is?
paincuzdumb
How did you start with only $6,000? Do you think others can follow your path today? Do you think they’ll ever remove the PDT rule?
MadazMoney
I just dealt with the PDT rule and worked my way up. It wasn't easy for sure but with the right discipline in knowing when to pick your spots you can get out of the PDT purgatory. I don't think they'll remove the PDT remove unfortunately though. Just another way for the suits to hold down the little guy.
CodyRosser
Any "Direct Offering" alerts to subscribe to in order to not be caught in one? Any suggestions/tips on how to avoid them?
MadazMoney
Of course, in our community we do the analysis to have a general idea of when they're likely to happen too so we take precaution in those scenarios.
Mister-Grumpy
What's the most fancy thing you own? What do you "want" to buy but can't afford? What keeps you moving forward now?
MadazMoney
I come from humble beginnings so I don't really own anything super fancy. Most of the money I spend is on life experiences (i.e. travelling) rather than material goods. If I do buy something material, it's usually because I got a good deal on it or it's a good investment (i.e. a Rolex, a fully depreciated car, etc...). I am however currently looking to purchase a home.
AR-CK25
Hi Max
Loving all the free into you put out. Thank you
Best books to read. And best platform for UK traders ?
MadazMoney
You can find all the answers to questions like this in the FAQ section of my website www.madazmoney.com/faq
rose_petrosh
How old were you when you started day trading and how old are you now? Also how long did it take you to make your first 100k? First 500k and first million? How many hours did you put in on towards day trading a day when you started and do you do put in the same amount of hours now or you don’t need much effort at this point other than market hours?
MadazMoney
Started right after college. Took me about 2 years to reach 100K. Approx. 4-5 Years for 500K and 7-8 years for 1 Million. My first seven figure year was last year (My 9th year in the game). See my chat with traders interview for my full story. You can find it on YouTube. Search: "Madaz Chat With Traders"
MadazMoney
Not orange for obvious reasons lol which sucks because I love orange on cars as my M3 is orange. 😆 😆
MadazMoney
On my website www.madazmoney.com it has links to lots of YouTube Videos and other free content.
petelite100
How would a new trader planing to join your chat learn? Are their training videos inside? Or just try and follow along?
MadazMoney
Yes we have plenty of webinars and content in there. You should review my free content on my website/youtube channel first to get an idea of what I do.
StudyProfessional185
Thanks for all u do and the info u provide. Some of your YT videos go back from years ago. Do u still approach things the same way as u taught in the video's? Like technical analysis and all.
MadazMoney
Yes I use the same strategies just adjusted for market conditions but the basics are fundamentally the same.
Oregonmonk
Can you tell me how you go about learning to read tape? That is my weakest area and I need help. What resources can you point me to. Thanks
MadazMoney
Watch my videos on YouTube. Tons of examples of tape reading there. www.youtube.com/madaztrader
ravindertiwana
How do u make sure that ur trading on the right side??i sometimes end up taking trades against the strength only to get crushed!!
MadazMoney
s
You need a strategy that works. Most likely you're chasing stocks as they're already going up and once you get in it starts tanking. That's the most common mistake from what I noticed.
dres180304
Most of your picks have daily prs. What do you use to find news as it breaks? And what do you look for in a or? Thanks!!
MadazMoney
I have a scanner, Trade-Ideas, that tells me what the leading gappers in the market are plus any stocks that get sudden irregular volume.
dres180304
When you make a trade, or it continues to dip at what percentage of a loss do you quickly get out ?
MadazMoney
I predetermine a "must reverse" Support level and if it breaches that, then I'm all out and flipping short.
MadazMoney
It's good for newbies to get their feet wet with investing but for me personally from a day trader's perspective, it moves way too slow for me. I make way more day trading the volatility of the stock market.
