I Fired Wall St. - IFWS

I Fired Wall St. - IFWS IFWS was founded by long time trader and trading educator Brandon Fredrickson, tech angel Wayne Harrel & Daniel Scott with the goal of helping investors.

I Fire Wall Street was founded by long-time trader and trading educator Brandon Fredrickson, tech angel Wayne Harrel and Daniel Scott with the goal of helping investors and traders break free from Wall Street. For too long investors and traders have relied on the advice of corrupt brokerage firms, analysts and advisory services. Our goal is to reach 250,000 individuals and teach them to profit from the stock market independently.

05/16/2018

This is not a drill

02/12/2016

Stop worrying so much about what the market is going to do.
You don't make any money based on what the market does, your money is made based upon what you do.

If the market rallies, how will you position yourself?
If it continues to decline, how will you position yourself?
If Janet Yellin loses her mind, what will you be doing?
If she returns to sanity, what will you do?

Maybe oil will go down another 50%. Maybe it will double, or maybe it just goes sideways for awhile. How is that going to effect your investments and trading strategy?

Making money in the market isn't about knowing whats going to happen - I don't even know what Im having for lunch in 25 minutes yet and if I can't figure that out it's unlikely I can figure out what the stock market is going to be doing in X days, weeks, months.
But I can lay out all of the scenarios and then play an if this happens I will do that in my head so that no matter what happens I've got a plan.

02/02/2016

All of us have a number of things we need to accomplish each day in order to be successful.

The problem is that it can be one of those "easier said than done" type of things.

In the post I'm going to share with you a trick I discovered years ago to boost my productivity dramatically because it literally forced me to get everything done no matter what.

Developing new habits and being self disciplined can be really tough. I know because I used to really have no self discipline at all. If there was a no discipline at all event in the Olympics I would have been the Michael Phelps of that thing!

Each night before I go to bed I schedule how the following day is going to go for me. When I’m going to do what and the tasks I need to accomplish. It’s a very good habit to get into, one that dramatically improves your results.

When I first starting doing it though I was not getting everything done. I was accomplishing more than I had before I started to make the list -but typically there would only be a couple days in each week where I got everything done that I’d written out for myself.

So I decided to create some consequences for myself on any day I did not complete what I had planned.

On any day I did not complete the tasks I fined myself $100. I decided to give the money to a charity and choose the Shriners Hospital.

Doing just that one little thing had a huge impact. I was now basically getting everything done 5 or 6 days a week. That still left one or two fine days though.

One night I was talking on the phone to my dad and pi***ng and moaning about those one or two days per week I was still having to fine myself. I was pretty frustrated because it seemed like no matter what I tried I still had those few days every week where I’d juts screw the pooch and not get everything accomplished that I should have.

After a few minutes my dad half jokingly said “Well son, you should donate that money to PETA instead of the Shriners.”

Now, Dad was joking - but his idea actually seemed pretty damn brilliant to me. I got to thinking about it and I realized that to be honest I just didn’t mind giving the Shriners my money. They are an awesome charity doing wonderful things for sick kids and their families.

PETA on the other hand, I really can’t stand them.

I don’t have anything against them advocating for vegetarian diets. I personally probably eat about 70-80% vegetarian diet. I also think the awareness they bring to the public regarding animal cruelty is admirable. Where they lose me though is with their animal shelters. People bring animals to PETA’s shelter thinking they will be well taken care of since PETA seemingly cares more about animals than it does people. That’s not the case though -in fact over 90% of the animals brought to PETA’s shelters are euthanized with in 48 hours. And for that reason I absolutely fu***ng hate PETA. I don’t want to give them 25 cents of my money, let alone three hundred + bucks.

So with this charity giving what I do is break the year up quarterly. At the end of each quarter the check goes out. With the Shriners being my charity I was typically cutting a check for something in the neighborhood of $1500 each quarter. Once I switched to PETA I was only missing two or three times in every three month period. Several times I did not even have one missed day, and the worst quarter I’ve ever had was five.

02/02/2016

January was a tough month for traders. The S&P500 and the both lost a touch over 5% for the month. For the Nasdaq it was even worse as it ended the month down almost 8%. If we had not had such a strong rally friday the damage would have been even greater.

Individual investors, hedge funds and mutual friends also faired poorly. In fact nearly 95% of all traders and investors lost money for the month. Not only that - but nearly 2/3 of those lost more than the major averages.

One of the best ways to learn anything is to see what the best people in a field are doing and then do something very close to that yourself. In other words, what do the winners have in common, and how can I implement that myself.

So now the natural question might be: What do Januaries winning traders have in common with each other? As it turns out there were a few things.

First of all the people who made a profit in January are heavily in cash. In fact the average January winner’s portfolio has between
2 1/2 and 4 times more cash on hand than the losers.

Another thing the winners have in common is that they were substantially less active compared to their peers who lost money. The average losing trader in January was three to five times more active than the average winner. In other words for every one trade the winners placed, the losers did between three and five.

My own results in January tend to reflect this as well. There were several times over the course of the month that I was 100% in cash. When things are hitting on all cylinders I’ll often be between 120% and 150% invested in the market. My top exposure in January was just 58%. Last week both Cray Incorporated (CRAY) and McDonald’s (MCD) triggered. They are currently the only stocks I own in my trading account - which is 62% in cash at this time. I ended the month with a profit of 4.1%, not a huge number, but one I’m pretty happy with given the state of the overall market. I also have an account that I only day trade the eMini S&P500 and eMini Nasdaq futures in - typically I’m doing between 3 and 7 trades a week there with the goal of making 30 Nasdaq points per week. I trade one contract for every $12,000 in my account. I keep right around $250,000 in that account and remove profits every month.

The cornerstone of my trading approach has always been the preservation of capital and avoiding large losses. This is important for several reasons. The first, and probably the most obvious, being that if you go bust you no longer have the opportunity to make any money at all. I’d much rather forgo a few trades here and there than risk huge losses on my account. Recovering from a drawdown is no easy task. If you have just a 20% drawdown you’ve now got to make 25% just to get back to break-even. A 50% loss will require doubling your account simply to get back to break-even. Its a little bit of market cruelty that the numbers work out that way because sustaining a 50% loss is pretty easy to do, while doubling your money is both difficult and time consuming. Where I to sustain a 50% it would generally take me a year and a half to two years to get back to break-even following my own trading strategies.

The losses are not the only painful thing about losing a lot of money though. The hit to your confidence can be much worse than the one to your pocketbook. Large losses have an overwhelming tendency to screw with your head. All of the sudden you’re either afraid to take your trades because you feel like a loser or you go into revenge mode and try to make the money back as quickly as possible. Either of them is a recipe for failure.

I know that this philosophy does not make me the most exciting guy on the web teaching how to trade - but to be honest, I’m not here to be exciting. I’m not here to be your babysitter.

What I am here for is to help people who are serious about making a living from the market or substantially adding to their nest do exactly that. I first started teaching traders how to make money in late 1999. As time went by I noticed something interesting. When I was not active I would lose a ton of subscribers. I’ve talked to several other people in this trading education and newsletter business and every single one of them notices the same thing. The sad truth is that not being active actually costs you more subscribers than losing a s**t load of money being active does.

In the past what I would do to sort of make up for this is that when I was not active I’d just mention a bunch of stocks that could be setting up. I’d tell people that personally I was in cash, but if you want to trade here are some things to look at. When I survey’d my list I discovered that nearly 90% of the people would still take those trades and the vast majority of the time they would end up losing money.

All that was incredibly frustrating to me. In 2004 I hired a psychiatrist to work with me on peak performance. He was from London and had worked with a few professional soccer teams and a lot of fund managers in the financial district in London. One thing he told me that was really discouraging is that over 3/4 of active traders actually meet the clinical criteria to be diagnosed as gambling addicts.

That realization is one of the reasons I got out of the trader education business and am only just now returning after 10 years away. I got into this business to help people, not hurt them - and when I concluded that in spite of my best efforts the majority of people would get hurt I really just lost my passion for the business.

I finally decided to come back, but I’ve promised myself that I’m just going to be showing you exactly what I do to be profitable. I sincerely want to help you. Very few things in the world give me more personal satisfaction than to see that someone I’ve “coached” has been able to fulfill their dream of being a full time trader. Other people just want to add nicely to a retirement account, and I’m more than able to help with that as well.

In the last ten years I’ve gained a lot more life experience and perspective. I’ve lost everything and been broke. I’ve battled cancer and during that time became severely addicted to pain medicine. Thankfully I’ve not touched them now in seven years. I’ve also started or helped start several seven and eight figure per year businesses and been raising three kids on my own. I’ve been trading again since 2010 and am more comfortable and profitable with it than I’ve ever been before.

I’m basically in a position now that allows me to say “This is how I do it. If this makes sense to you, if it feels right and you want to continue with me, I’d love to help you. If it’s not though I’m very happy to see you go.”

I’m not claiming here to be the best, but I am amongst the best. I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty that there are only 3 or 4 people out there actively teaching this who can match me in terms of experience and success. At the end of the day I really want this to succeed - and I’m pretty confident that it will, but I only want it to succeed on my own terms. If it doesn’t I can happily go back to just trading for myself and working inside my other businesses and projects. My hope though is that won’t happen because this business is by far the one I’m most passionate about.

So sad that millions of people think these dumb bastards have anything useful to say or are worth paying any attention t...
01/28/2016

So sad that millions of people think these dumb bastards have anything useful to say or are worth paying any attention to at all.

01/26/2016

Apple is gonna get trashed.

01/26/2016

Watching CRAY. I'll be a buyer if it breaks above $37.60

01/26/2016

Well good morning!

According to the Wall Street Journal “Some market signals start to flash red!” Some? Now they warn you?

I guess some people might make the “Better late that never” claim, but I learned how dangerous that could be this summer. I’d gone over to my parents place to help them do some yard work and cut my leg. A few days later my leg started to hurt a bit and I had a fever. The next day my leg was killing me and I was really sick. Around 6 or 7 on Wednesday I knew something was really wrong but didn’t want to screw around in the Emergency room, so I figured I’d just suck it up until morning. At about 11 my 17 year old daughter came to tell me good night, took a look at me and freaked out. She told me she was bringing me to the hospital and I tried to say no, to which she replied “If you say no again I’m calling 9-11 and Gramma and Grampa” - so, off I went! We get to the ER and it’s packed, just like I knew it would be. People had obviously been waiting hours just to be triaged, let alone go back to see the doctor. Not Brandon though! A nurse took one look at my sorry ass, pointed at me and said “You, come with me!” They got me an IV and some antibiotics and pain medicine and then put me in the helicopter to go to Iowa City. Got there and had an 11 hour surgery because my small cut had turned into Necrotising Fasciites - better known as “Flesh eating bacteria”. Anyway after my surgery the doctor asked why I waited so long and I told her that I was just going to go see my doctor in the morning because I figured the ER would take forever. She told me that had I waited until morning at the very least I would have lost my leg, probably my life.

So, late isn’t always better than never! Not in life, and not with your money either.

Ok so back to the stock market.

I told you yesterday morning that if the market could not continue its rally it would be in a lot of trouble. I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as it ended up being yesterday. Declining issues were trouncing advancers all day. Small caps getting thrashed and financials getting trashed. We haven’t even talked about oil, which more or less got taken to an alley and shot in the back of the head. (Btw if you have not had a chance to listen to the podcast I did with Corey last week about the current market, go listen here: http://ifiredwallstreet.com/january-2016-market-crash-udate/
In it I talk a lot about oil and oil stocks. Right now there is not a lot I’m looking to do with oil, but going forward it’s going to be one of the more interesting opportunities out there, in fact it might actually be one of those once or twice in a life time type of situations)

So what to do here? Well I’m still basically in cash and waiting. I know that my sitting in cash pretty often doesn’t always make me the most exciting guy you can be following, but I’ve always had this theory that if I p**s all my money away on dumb stuff I won’t be able to make any later on good stuff. It’s worked out pretty well for me since in 20 years now I’ve only had one where I lost money and I’ve only underperformed the indexes three times.

Several people have asked if I can do another audio or a webinar for you. I’ve got the flu or a cold right now and my voice would probably bring tears to your eyes, but I’m getting one together and will have something for you by the end of the week. (my twin three year old niece and nephew have been staying with me the last five days while my brother and sister in law are on vacation, I think they are basically biological weapons facilities. If ISIS ever got ahold of them, we’d all be in trouble)

Last but not least. Over the last several weeks I’ve been working on a lot of educational material. Things to teach you how I approach the market, fundamentally, technically and psychologically. I’ll be going in depth like I have not done since 2006 when I left TFMS. When my ex and I split up I agreed not to teach trading for at least five years so as to not hurt her in the business. I’d planned to come back after the five years, but in the prior five years I got involved in a lot of other businesses and just that life happened, so it’s taken until now. It will be worth the wait though, that I promise.

One last, “last” thing: Be sure to check the blog each morning before the market opens for my report. I’m sort of technologically incompetent and haven’t figured out exactly how to get the emails out, but I have figured out posting on the blog!

As always if you’ve got any comments or questions hit reply and ask away.

01/25/2016

Paul Tudor Jones is one of the smartest people you could ever meet and one of the most successful traders of all time. What's his advice on how to make money? Start by not losing it.

"Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always first and foremost protecting your ass. That's why most people lose money as individual investors or traders because they're not focusing on losing money. They need to focus on the money that they have at risk and how much capital is at risk in any single investment they have. If everyone spent 90 percent of their time on that, not 90 percent of the time on pie-in-the-sky ideas on how much money they're going to make, then they will be incredibly successful investors."- PAUL TUDOR JONES II

01/23/2016

What's the biggest thing holding you back from being as successful as you'd like as a trader.

Comment below and I'll create some articles, audio's and videos (free) to help you out.

01/22/2016

Isn't it amazing how much money the people in DC just p**s away? I always find it amusing when a private corporation is able to come in and take over some program that the government used to manage and then the private corporation not only does it cheaper and much more efficiently - they also turn a tidy profit as well. This is just my little opinion - but when that sort of thing happens it's pretty obvious the people in DC where incompetent and best and corrupt at worse. When this type of thing happens some of the top administrators of whatever the prior agency or program was should be looking at spending a bit of time with their asses in jail.

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