017 Interview w Troy Peterson, Stock Market Gap Trader

Hello and welcome to the Consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside out trading and Brian McAvoy, where the focus is on consistency because when you have the consistent part down, profits become easy. Hello, everybody, this is Brian McAvoy with the consistent Profits podcast brought to you by Inside Out Trading. I'm excited today to be interviewing Troy Peterson of Gap Edge Trading. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today, Troy.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, glad you're here. So everybody knows Troy has over 20 years of experience in day trading. After gaining mastery in GAPS in 2010, he launched GAP Edge Trading to assist traders in gaining an edge in the market day trading stock so stocks that gap. Troy has trained and metered hundreds of traders around the world with his Mastering the GAPS method, which we'll talk about later. He's master on how to day trade stocks that gap up or down. Troy's been featured on SFO Magazine, Forbes.com, money Show, Active Trader and trading markets, and has been quoted in various leading financial sites and blogs. Thanks again for being here today.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So I gotta ask, I was curious. I mean, I ran across you on LinkedIn and a lot of the trading educators that are there have been around for a while like myself. And so there's a history like prior to trading that seems kind of a common path that a lot of people, they went to college, had a career for a while and somewhere around 40 plus minus five years, they got into trading. And so, you know, when I was looking at your history, you know, I saw that it went back to, you know, you started, you know, trading in 2001.

Yes.

Prior to that was, you know, college. So did you really go straight from college to trading or was there something technically.

Yes, I did. I mean, I finished my four year degree when I was 29. My wife and I were both going back to school, so. And then I started shortly after college. I was working a career and in the, in the, it was pension administration. I was managing 400ks profit sharing plans, doctors, lawyers, working for a Benetech, Benetech Administration Plan Service. And I just, I saw all the money, right? And I saw that people that made all the money were the owners, right? And then I thought, you know, you know, doing this for a couple years, I was like, I'm at this, I'm not stupid. I could figure out, you know, that people that either own a business or were in the financial world with the only people that had the money in this country. That's what, that's what I learned. So I was like, well I, I'm no dummy, you know, I don't want to be. I want to figure out a way to make this work for me and my family. So I started swing trading. It was able to, you know, Alan GreenSpan was the 1 interest rate right back then. So keeping money in the bank, you weren't making much money. We, we made more than we made now but, but there was no, it wasn't, you know, having you know, $50,000 in the bank just didn't seem like it was a good idea. So I talked to my wife who said hey, there's this newsletter, you know, my four of my buddies and I, we joined together. It was CBS Market Watch. And the guy was making calls that was just phenomenal, like 800%. So my buddy who had been trading in Florida for a while, I showed him the newsletter. He's like, hey, this, this stock's the one. Man, I knew nothing. I was green as computer. Actually, the less I knew the better because I just followed his footsteps and he went, he went all in on this oil and gas stock out of. So he went in 25k. So I put in 20k and the stock went from $0.59 to seven bucks. I got out at 566 something. I made like six figures. You know, I was kind of pissed because it didn't go to 10. The guy said we go to 10. But then I knew I had gotten like a chunk of money. Right, right. And so I told my wife, said we could squander this or we could use it. And so then, then I began to like one that I had a day trade. So I pursued educators like myself and spent some time with, with the lab for two weeks, you know, training with these guys. And I was on and I was in Southern California and I was able to trade the open and go to work so I could get up, you know, at 6:00am and trade till like you know, 8:00 o', clock, 8:30 and then be at work at night. So worked great for. And that's why I was attracted to gaps because you could just do it in that 90 minute window. So I, I really was drawn to it and you know, cut my teeth on gaps. And the guys that trained me were really into gaps, you know, with stocks equities that gap up or down based upon news in the pre market it was like, it was like a fabricated watch list. Every morning you didn't have to like, you know, scan, but we had to scan for the gaps. We didn't have like you know, have after the market closed, look for gaps because it was always, always in the morning before the market opened in New York, pre market. Right. So that's how I kind of got my start.

Well that's cool. You actually have to kind of land in the right place for you. A lot of traders, they'll start in one place and they kind of meander around trying different things before they find out what works for them. Yeah, yeah. Very cool that you kind of started in the right spot. Very cool.

Yeah. I actually in the process of the gaps, you know, I was working the gaps and I would go to work and trade the gaps and became, you know, I did everything, I tried everything on the sun, you know, you know, indicators and not, you know, not, not bashing anybody. Just didn't work for me. And I dibbled, nibbled in the futures market, you know, with S P500ES MINIS. And then I did a little Forex and I never slept know, doing Forex. I was up at, you know, two in the morning going to the bathroom, checking on my pound, you know, down, you know, a thousand dollars on, on the British pound. And I told my wife said this isn't working because I, I just can't sleep, you know, when I'm doing Forex. Because. And so then I just dialed back down to like, you know, just gap trading. What was working, what why I began it and then just pursued my journey from there. And then people started seeking me out, you know, just in social media, on Twitter and stuff to mentor them. And I never intended to start a my own service, but then I just, it was mentioned people in Brazil and South America, you know, Europe, people were just hitting me up to coach them. So I was coaching these guys and then I just kind of one day just thought why don't I just start like a room, you know, and then there's as a gap and traded again back in 2010. So.

Huh. So you said you started a room.

With the training room? Yeah, training room, yeah, where I make the calls, we go over the game plan and I still have a training room now, but it's, it's pretty much like I don't really promote it much. If someone shows up, you know, you know, and wants to be part of it, they can. But I don't. Like just like in the beginning, you know, I did it for like, you know, 13, you know, 12 years. I kind of backed off and I kind of enjoying this little slower paced life. You know, I just got back from Maui yesterday. My wife, my Family spent some time in Maui just enjoying life and my kids getting older now. And so it's just kind of like I love trading. It's like I'll always have it. And I love helping other traders, you know, develop an edge, you know, and that's, I think that's the key to trading well.

So as far as gap trading, for those unfamiliar with it, once you kind of explain what you're talking about with gap trading.

Sure, sure. So when an equity closes at the night, you know, the end of the trading day, previous trading day, say, you know, a stock like Microsoft, say whatever the price is, 305, you know, and tomorrow morning it opens up on earnings or bad news or good news and it gaps down to say 290 or 285. That's like, you know, it's, that's a gap from the previous close. So whether it's up or down, it can create a shift in momentum to the upside or to the downside. Depending on the move, it can be faded. And there's a lot of strategies I've incorporated and based upon higher price action, which is kind of a main indicator, you know, where the stock opens from the previous close compared to where it was. But trap traders on the long side or trap traders on the short side, there can be a big momentum play on either side during the day trading day.

Okay, so with your gap trading now, is that a day trading strategy or you swing trading?

Yeah. Okay, so currently get day trading. Clearly that's what I focus on.

Okay, so you're not holding positions overnight?

No, not, not in the strategy, no. I mean, I do, do, you know, option trades on myself, you know, for swing trading, for capitalization, leverage. I just do options for swing trading.

Okay, now why do you see, why do you see this particular strategy as a good edge compared to other strategies?

Well, it's not necessarily a better edge than other strategies. You know, I think anybody that's developed a strategy and honed in on some set of, I think trading is to be developed. You know, what fits your personality? So to say my edge is better than somebody else is. I don't, I don't believe so. I mean, there are people that have different edges than me and maybe make way more money than I do. I, I think it just fits me, you know, and fits some of the guys I help out. I think it's because I just want to keep it simple. You know, it's like this. It's. So say, say you see a stock gap on in the open today just Hypothetically, I didn't trade today, so I don't even know what moved today. But. And it was, you know, whatever ABC stock and it was, and it had like you know, a million, you know, breakout volume in the pre market. So there's an indicator, a hint that there's something going on there. Right. So stock normally trades 200, 000 shares a day. It's already done three times in the pre market. It's telling you that there's something going on that you want to pay attention to. So by the night close it's probably done, you know, 15 million, you know, after the day's trading. So it had you know like over X amount increase in volume. And then you watch the news and it made the news because there was some kind of, you know, activity going there in the news realm. So I don't really pay attention to the news. I mean I'm aware of the news. It doesn't determine my bias. I'm particularly paying attention to the pre market volume where it's gapped to and where potentially could go intraday based upon the pre market trading action actually gives me a range. So if it's already had a big range in a pre market, say it's going to move five bucks up or down. That's a range that I can, that it can go back into in a day trading day. So you know I, I use like say it's not gap down 10 bucks and it rallied at the open $5 or $6. That's that, that leans back to the downside is a, is a very big potential for a target for me intraday that and it typically hits if it's not typically, but just like you've been doing this long enough so you just kind of gather like an intuitiveness. You know, it's based upon experience. So it's not like you, you know, it's like a, I mean we formatted the method and it's like, you know, some days I don't even trade because there's, there's no gaps, you know, there's nothing I'm, I'm doing. So I found myself being bored a lot. And so you know, I've done all the days of trading, you know, I have to have five trade 10 trades a day, whatever. But now it's just like, let's just find the best trade for the week and make 10R, you know.

Okay. So generally speaking, so whenever you have a gap in the market, you're just looking to position yourself so that when it, when it kind of re readjust to cover back over that gap. Is that correct? I mean is that like the general premise of the strategy?

Yeah, I mean, I mean the way that I just describe it is the sounds like, you know, it's like when a stock gaps to in a way that's going to break from momentum, upside or downside based upon the gap. It's like you know, you know like an animal, like a dog is chained up in a yard and it can only go so far. Right. Because you know, support resistance and all those things play and play, you know, there's nothing really happening. There's no event there. Right. Because it's just, you know, the market makers are holding it in those price range. But once it that dog breaks that chain, you know like the gap breaks that trend up or down is complete. A roman basically it's going for price discovery. So a stock is looking for prices trying to find, you know, like where are the buyers at, where are they going to come in and support the stock or you know, where the seller's at, you know, so it's more about price discovery and paying attention to the event that's unleashed the equity from the prior support and resistance areas that previously held in the trend.

Okay, so but you're typically looking for, I mean when you, when you're looking at a trade, are you looking for a particular, you know, reward, risk or.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do look for particular at least you know, three to one is what a what? Ideally, you know, I mean I'm not looking for a scalp, you know, one to one, nothing like that. So at least a minimum three to one.

Okay.

You know, risk 50 make 150 potentially. And targets are like ways to describe it. Targets are very subjective. They're an eye of the beholder. Right. We're not guaranteed our targets but like I said before, I use a lot of the pre market data, high volume breakouts to determine like you know, where a stock potential could hold or move up to on the upper downside based upon the pre market trading action that's occurred before the market opened. So this, the equity will respond to those prior support resistance areas that it had in the pre market.

Okay, well that makes sense. Yeah, that's why. And that do you use other indicators? You talked about volume obviously using price actions. What, what are these other.

The one thing I I pay attention to in over the years I've kind of like had a love hate relationship with and have now just cleaned in on is, is the volume weight, average price. Pay attention to that. Because if, if a stock particularly might want some of my rules, I'm just going to give them away is if inequity in the intraday chart, five 15 minute 36 minute chart. If it's below the vwap, I'll, I'll hypothetically, you know in within a guideline look to stay short. Now if it's over the vwap and it tends to hold that area I'll look to be long and with that as being support area with obviously with, with confirmation. It's just not blindly, you know, I'm have to see some prior price action support that thesis.

The vwaps come up more and more over the last recent times in conversations with other traders. So. So what is it that you like.

About the V wap? Well, just in my study over the years is kind of like a benchmark for institutional traders that they're, you know, they buy or sell around that area. And the price action, if you study it, you know, gap that's, you know, you didn't trade it for the day and you look at it, you'll tend to see a lot of action around the V WAP that support it. I mean it's not foolproof in a sense, but there's this, it seems to be over time there's a very consistent attraction to, to buying or selling around that price, around that price area on the B wap. Okay. So I like that because it's kind of like just like it's a no brainer. It's right there, you know, look. What's it doing? A gauge. It's a gauge, you know.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean one of the things I like about it, you know, being volume weighted. Okay. So yeah, it's taking that into account, which does matter. But one thing and it's fun and conversation particularly with you know, like coaching clients, you know, they want to use moving averages and use them as you know, like you know, support or resistance or you know, target, that kind of stuff. But what I find funny with weighted averages is the market doesn't know what the averages are.

Right.

It doesn't know where that line is, doesn't care. But if you're looking at specific numbers like a pivot point or whatever where yeah the market actually turned, those numbers now are significant as far as decisions in the marketplace.

Absolutely.

Averages. It's funny when people are using them for decision points that they're looking for the market to make moves. It's like no, the market doesn't know what the average of the last 50 price.

Price call. Spaghetti. Spaghetti lines. You know, it's just no meaning. He would say. Oh.

So a couple of just like general questions for you. I mean, as far trading, I mean, what do you, what do you see most people ignoring about trading that they shouldn't?

I think in just mentoring a lot of traders, I'm working with a lot of traders over the years and, and really wanting them to succeed and helping them on the jury. I mean, trading is just, it's 100 a journey of introspection. It's like, it's highly psychological in a fence that you, you trade your, your beliefs, you know, about the world, about money, you know, your fears have a huge impact. And I think people don't really understand. I think that they get, they gather a method, but they don't take the journey of introspection about themselves and what they believe about money and the relationship with money in the world and that they may hinder themselves and sabotage themselves in ways. So it's really a psychological thing. I, I believe that if you really stay in this journey of trading a lot that you'll, if you don't hone in on your fears and your past traumas or whatever could be influenced. You know, Denise Scholes is an amazing. Vernon of her. Denise Scholes, she's like trading. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've, I've done some, you know, coaching with her. Shoot. Like 10 years ago, she revolutionized my training. Just the psychological capital that people have, I think people don't take into account that, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, since this is the Consistent Profits podcast, I, I have to ask, what do you, what do you consider like the top key things as far as being able to make consistent profits as a trader is.

It's a game of odds, you know, so money management is, is the key to being successful because, you know, if you go in for a three to one, you know, risking 50 cents and potential is three, you know, you just play out the odds and if you stop out, you just don't take it personal and the next one plays out for 5R. You know, it's like, it's. Money management is everything. So I believe that's the key to, you know, psychological evaluation, understanding, you know, psychological capital and then money management and you know, know your entries, know your exits before you get in the trade. And people, you know, people always have the, the fomo. You know, it's like, oh, I could have made more. But did you follow your plan is the key? You know, did you, did you did you execute what you're supposed to execute? And if it stopped out, it stopped out. You did your plan, and if, if it would have worked, but you didn't use your stop, you're still winning trade because you followed your plan.

So you mentioned Denny Scholes. What other people have been influential on your journey?

Well, she was huge because just understanding, untangling ourselves from just the psychology. And then. What was that book? I can't remember now. I recommend it to everybody. Oh, Mark Douglas, Trading. Mark Douglas, Trading His Own. One of my favorite books. He basically, you. Your, Your. Your beliefs predict your future. You know, what you believe, you know.

Now part of the reason I laugh is, like, when I ask about, you know, books, recommended books, it's Trading in the Zone. Always comes up. Always.

It's a great book, though.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, if you, if you quote the guy on Twitter, he'll come after you because it's like, I've never quoted. I've heard this, and people said that he's like, he's the one. Anybody quoting his book or nothing? People gonna buy it, you know? You like. Why wouldn't you like that? Yeah, but he's got some good stuff.

Oh, yeah. Well, any other books or influential people on your journey? Heroes?

Yeah, like Dr. Jonas Pencia, supernatural. He's a meditation coach. You've heard of Dr. Joe Dispensia? Yeah, you were the placebo book. Great. It's not a trading book, but it's psychological meditation. Reprogramming your subconscious mind, you know, huge into meditation.

A lot of work in. In the field and. And impacted a lot of people, but, I mean. Well, you remember his story. He actually didn't. When he, like, in a car wreck and like, totally wrecked.

He got ran over by a car, crushed his spine.

Yeah. And. And actually was able to heal himself with the spiritual work, which. Yeah, just. I mean, very cool story, but.

Yeah, very cool story. Well, I think it's a power if. If we really understand the power we have within ourselves to, like, you know, create our futures. And most people get stuck in the past and keep repeating the past and the future. So if you can untangle yourself from the trauma of the past. We've all had bad things happen to us and just move on and start creating a good future. You know, it's not like, you know, gonna happen overnight, but if you take the journey down the rabbit hole, you know, just, you know, actually, when I. I was coaching clients, I took on a bunch of coaching clients back in 2020. I took on three guys for six months. And the prerequisite I had for them before I would coach them was they had to read Dr. Joe's book Becoming Supernatural. And so I thought that was they. Everyone's enjoyed it. Because I want to begin, I want them to begin in a place where they can succeed, you know, because I can give them the tools. If they don't have the internal intuition and belief about themselves, they're not going to arrive at success.

Oh yeah, well, part of what he does that I like, that can be very helpful for traders. So it's cool that you're, you're having him read, that is. And I've heard him repeated dozens of talks that he's done. How a lot of people, it's like they start their, their day in replay mode of yesterday and they're, they're just running these memory loops. And so it's like just from the moment they wake up, they're just immediately reinforcing the past without him really paying attention to it. And. Yeah, yeah, his whole thing is you have to kind of take control and, you know, take some quiet time and then sit your body down and tell it. No, this is, this is where we're going.

Yeah, you have to tell it. Yeah. I think the thing really, thing is just being mindful, you know, just being present, you know, being aware of your thoughts is one thing I teach traders, you know, I have them take it, you know, pad next to their, you know, trading desk. And I said, when you have them, like, you know, Jimmy Scholl has always taught us it was like, you know, when you have a negative emotion or negative feeling, just let it pass through you. It's not you. It's just let it go through you. It's just an event. It's. You don't have to act on it. You know, I think some traders, you know, in the beginning in their journey, they just act on, you know, revengeful like that I lost, I gotta get it back. You know, one of the worst things you could do, but letting those feelings and emotions, just being aware of them, journaling them and being cognizant of them and understanding and then maybe address them and find out where they coming from. Like, why is it when you trade, you get mad at your dad or your mom or like what kind of, you know, just kind of untangle yourself. It's really purely psychological. A lot of things are, you know, but, but when you're expressing emotions, you like, find out where did that invading thought come from. It wasn't thinking that and it just Came to me as I'm pissed off, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's that. Well, that's true.

Huh.

Well, so as far as with your, with your gap edge trading, you said that you had started that just because, you know, people were kind of seeking out and you wound up, you know, helping various people decided to go ahead and make it a full time thing. What's it like when somebody comes to work with you? Are you doing one on one coaching? Do you have like online courses or you know, like I said, how do you actually go about helping people?

Yeah, I mean particularly, you know I have my room, my trading room where I post, you know, all my trades that I do. You know, in the trade list we always focus on and then I have a purely a chat aspect to it. So there's the alert aspect which is a separate piece to it which by itself nobody can say nothing, just me. Then the chats passes another place where they can ask questions. And you know, particularly I, if, if a guy signs up for the, which for the course I have like an online course about the method of catfish trading. They get access to the room for like a month free. If you know, not free included in the price. And that way they can kind of see, you know, they can kind of learn. I want people to learn with, you know, have the education and the seed in action. You know, this is what, this is what the course is teaching. Here I am doing it every day, you know, the gap list, focus on, gap up, step down. And then if they, if they want to sign up for coaching, they can do it by the hour. Do. I haven't, I haven't done any like six months coaching sessions since back in 2020. Just time wise is busy. But right. You know, I do, I do make time out for people if they want to meet up for like an hour coaching session or whatever. But yeah, I mean I, I haven't been too, I mean I do we have about you know, 20, 20 guys in our room right now. But I'm not like back, you know, when I first started the business I was, you know, never paid for any advertisement, never, never bought ads on Facebook or Twitter. Just everything's organic. You know, I was all about just like if people find me, you know, if they're meant to be part of my group, then they'd be part of my group because I mean I really do enjoy helping people win, you know. And it's not about winning. I think it's helping them find themselves to know that everyone. I think it was like Dr. Joe said was, you know, is pro. We've all been programmed in a way, right? So like you're back to the psychological thing is like, you know, if your child get your programs, you're seven and then I think 12 years old, kids go into a, a stress state before puberty and they're no longer programmable. So if you had like a traumatic child, you may be living it out, you know, in your past and all that stuff. So it's, it's all, it's interesting how life just flows from psychology. So my wife has a degree in psychology, so she's, she's kind of helped me a little bit, you know, from that area. But, but yeah, I do, I do. You know, people can come to my website and you know, join. You can do a trial. It's my room, you know, it's no charge. You know, they want to kick the tires and.

Yeah, you said that you have an online course. Is that like text based, Is it video based or.

No, it's video based. It's all on demand. I used to, I used to teach it live like, you know, like once a month and you know, it was like. And I was just kind of like, wow, this is getting tired of teaching this thing, you know, and people sign up and now just. And then it wouldn't work all the time with people's schedules, so then I just recorded it. And then once they sign up, they get lifetime access, you know, it's stored on the server and they get a password and log on.

Okay, and you said that's where. With that. That's your, you were teaching your method?

Yeah, correct. That's the method of teach.

But how long does it take to. For somebody to get through that?

The course is like five hours. Okay, so kind of go over some basics and then build from there into the, into the method, what we do.

Okay, so once they are exposed to the training, about how long does it take before they're kind of, you know, starting to get up on their own two feet and starting to get, you know, competent with it? Was it like, you know, a couple weeks, 30 days, three months, six months?

I mean, most people come usually people don't start out with education. They usually kind of people. Most people come because typical people that have money, doctors, lawyers, dentists, they kind of have like an ego. They think that they can, they've mastered, right? They've mastered, in a sense they've been successful, right? They. You have money in a sense to trade, you know, fifty, a hundred thousand. You've done something Right. Maybe you flipped a house, whatever and you want to invest in trading. And most people, most of from my experience, don't typically go to education first. They try to do it on their own. But I mean, but I put the basics in there for the people that don't, you know, just, you know, like my son, if he just started, he could watch it and learn. He knows nothing about trading, you know, 16, he's never traded. So.

Okay. No, I was just curious. I've actually been kind of surprised. Some method providers that I've talked to, they'll say it takes six months to a year before you're pretty competent with their method.

More profitable.

Yeah. And so that's why I was curious. And others can be fairly quick if it seems straightforward. Yours seems pretty straightforward.

Yeah, very straightforward, very simple method. I mean is this like, you know, just give them, I give them everything that I've gathered over, you know, the years of trading that I've done. I don't typically like to say, you know, how long because I think it's up to the person. You know, I've seen people come on and just run with it and get and do better than me, you know, and I think that's great, you know, and then I've seen people struggle and I see will take a lot longer. So I think it's, it's if somebody's hungry and someone's disciplined, they could learn quickly. You know, I think just like with anything you do in mind.

Okay, yeah, I was just curious. Like I said, you know, some, some guys, you know, it's like six months. They know that that's kind of the baseline. Others. Yeah, 30 days.

Yeah, I would say, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, you know, people a lot people will ask me, you know, they'll send me a message or meet up with me online to chat and they'll ask me, you know, when can I be profitable? And I always try to tell them, I say, you know, you don't focus on the money at first. Focus on learning the method and the way that I was able to successfully be able to become a full time trader. I started part time, was my wife and I both had jobs and if you can work a job or have income come in, it takes a lot of pressure off you to be able to format and trade. And so I think the less pressure and the people that seem to do the worst are the ones that had to make money, you know, and have to like pay the mortgage. That's the worst place to be in Honestly.

Oh, true, true.

Because.

Yeah. Then you start trying to force stuff and you do all kinds of stupid things. Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well.

Huh.

So. Well, as far as with trading, your method night, you're. You're dealing. You said that you had traded forex at another time, but you're now you're trading strictly stocks, right? What.

What's your stocks? And I swing trade for my, my retirement plan, my wife and I with options. But okay. But yeah, I do strictly just trade equities. And I've been, I've been with the Same broker since 20 2003. Trade station. And people say, oh, you go with this platform. I like Tradestation because they, they have, you know, platform and brokerage together and it's all I know. So I mean.

Yeah, and that makes sense, you know, if any broke, don't fix it. Besides, there's always. There's a price to a learning curve.

Absolutely. Your new platform. Yeah. I mean there's probably better ones out there, but hey, this works for me, so.

Well, tradestation is not a bad platform, so.

Yeah, no, no, it's not.

Rock and roll.

And I think that trading, you know, should be boring. You know, you know, if you're not bored. I mean, to me personally, I mean, boring for what I do. I mean, people may be scalping or. I've never found any success in scalping personally. It's just 5 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute, 60 minute setups, you know, you know, sometimes early kind of on a real advanced gap method. I could get in on the 15 second chart at the open, but that's like, I would never like that's just from experience to do it myself, but it's nothing. I would like say, hey, you do this and the guy like, you know, it's, it's very, it's. It can be difficult. There's a lot of advanced setups I would never teach, you know, myself with somebody unless I was mentoring them one on one.

Right.

Yeah, you probably know that.

Well, yeah, no, it's, it's good that you keep it simple. Well, so as far as what you're doing though, would it, would your strategy also be applicable maybe for somebody who wants to trade futures?

You know, I get that question a lot. I don't think so. I mean, I think, yeah, I think that that could be true actually on event days, you know, like, you know, say there was like, you know, a bombing. Remember back there? I remember there's been catastrophic events that the market always responds to. Like there's a bombing in Spain, you know, shoot, that's like 12 years ago. And then where the market reacts violently to the news and. But those events are, they're not like every day, you know what I mean? There was actually a guy, I can't remember his name. I think he, he switched to a hedge fund. He was actually an educator and Scott was his name. I can't remember his last name. His website used to be called Trade the Gap.

Okay.

He particularly just traded off the triple Qs and I think he had a method that he developed. So yeah, there is a way you can do it, but I don't, I never knew his method. But he later turned into managing people's money, so he's probably doing quite well.

Okay. But so for you and your students, you guys are focusing primarily on the stock market. Market. US Stock market.

Yeah. Just equities. Yeah, yeah. Us. US Market particularly.

What, what would you consider a minimum capital for somebody to be able to trade your method effectively?

Well, I mean, I mean, do you have to have 25 minimum to open up a margins account with a broker? But I wouldn't go in 25 because it's just like you have a couple days lost, you're below the minimum. So I would say at least 35, you know, 35. Give yourself a little rubber reach to not sweat losses, you know, in the learning curve. And I always teach people to start small, you know, have your risk amount, you know, set, you know, our method set to like, you know, 100 bucks, you know, make it worth, you know that it's painful when you do lose because in other words, you're never going to learn if you, if you, if you're, if you're losing 10 bucks and doesn't bother you, you know, you're not going to learn from the mistake. But lose 100, make 300, you know, lose 200, make 150, you know, it's a purely just a, it's a just a percentage gain. You know, if you, if you're following your, your method strictly and keeping stats is, is very important knowing and particularly the time of day some sometimes, you know, after the morning session. It's probably not. You know, lately markets has been relentlessly strong, you know, sideways choppy. And I was glad I went to Hawaii.

Well, besides, this is a really good time of year to go there actually. The whales are still there, aren't they?

Yeah. We were in Maui in the evening. The winds would pick up a little bit. Yeah. So we were in Wailea. Yeah, I didn't want to come back. I was like why don't you just extend it out? But we have a dog and someone watching our dog for us so we couldn't, couldn't stand it any longer.

No, Wailea is nice. My sister's been, she's been living o' Maui since 87. She's been here for a long time.

How was she there?

She's over in Makawa.

Okay, I know where that is. Yeah.

Yeah, I've been there a number of times actually.

I, I think, I think the trading time wouldn't work too well though because you gotta get it early in the morning now.

For a lot of people it works.

Yeah. So now I get up at 5:30 West coast time. So that would probably be. 2:30. Yeah, 2:30. All right. Okay.

I'm on the east coast, so yeah, it's, it's six hours difference for me to Maui. Yeah. So yeah, about three. Should be like either two or three for you depending on daylight or standard time.

Where are you located at?

I'm in North Carolina.

Oh, okay. Well that's fine. I haven't been out there ways. It's pretty nice out there.

Oh yeah, yeah, I like it here. It's a gorgeous state. Probably some of the prettiest areas on the east coast. And this I just know from driving through them. North Carolina, gorgeous. Tennessee, beautiful.

Oh yeah, I love Tennessee.

Yeah, I mean mountains, trees, tons of lakes and rivers and everything. Kentucky, gorgeous horse country up there.

What, what if you could, if you probably live in the place you want to live. But if, if you don't though, what city would you live in? Like, because you know, as a trader we don't need to live in big cities. We don't live like a nice area, you know, quiet small place, you know. Where would you pick in North Carolina or maybe you're already there.

Well, I'm kind of already there. I mean right now I'm in the Raleigh Durham area.

I'm pretty familiar.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

This is great area here. And found out I'd forgotten about it. I got reminded not too long ago that Van Tharp lived in Cary, which is about 10 minutes from.

Yeah, that's exactly right. He did.

Cary's a pretty choice little town, but is it? Oh yeah, yeah. Very nice, very nice, very clean, well kept. Just really super nice part of town. So yeah, this whole area is good. I mean North Carolina is a really nice state. You know, you got mountains, you got the coast and you know, moderate but moderate weather. But it's still four seasons.

That's nice.

No fire ants. You can grow real grass here. But there are lots of pluses compared to like a little further south or further north. So.

Yeah, that's true. My wife and I were kind of. We've been here for three years in, in Arizona and we're like, we're ready to go. Our son's got two years after high school, but we told him, but I don't know, after going to Maui, we're like, you know what, why we live in a place. Let's just get out. So we're actually, we're actually exploring. It's going to sports places this summer to think about. Oh yeah, Changing. Changing location. Sell our house and do something different.

Are you thinking about going?

We don't know yet. We were asking Tennessee. We're looking at Tennessee, Florida, Texas, and maybe we'll check out North Carolina. Just kind of looking for something different. We've lived all over the place. We lived in California, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona. Yeah. Being a trader, you know, you could actually, you can actually move around. Oh yeah, I've lived a lot. Yeah. Huh.

I've lived in nine states.

Yeah. Well, yeah, you're probably good. So you found the perfect place then.

Well, I came here by choice. I was in Colorado before here.

What part?

That was in Grand Junction.

Okay. I have one of my clients lives in Grand Junction. She owns a ranch out there. Her name's Deb. Yeah, we. We actually, we lived in Fort Collins for a period of time.

Fort Collins is nice. Yeah.

Windsor actually, right next to them. Windsor was part right next to Fort Collins.

Yeah. One of the things that's nice about trading and. Yeah. Working for yourself is. Yeah. You're like, I'm ready for something new and you just kind of pick up and move.

That's what we're ready for. We're ready for. Yeah.

Very cool. Well, I'll tell you what, I really have enjoyed this and if somebody wants to, you know, connect with you, they like what they've heard here today. It's probably the best way to catch up with you. Just to swing by your site. Yeah.

Gapistrain.com okay.

And so that's probably the best place. And they can, they can reach out to you through there or look into your offerings. There's.

Yeah. Yeah, actually, yeah, they can do that. They could send me a message through there. The email. My email is troy@gapestrading.com or you send me an email through the website or message through there. Yeah, I used to, I used to do like these webinars all the time and you know, I haven't done any of that for a while. I've been pretty complacent with, with the. With Gap Australian. But, you know, I have a core group of guys I work with right now, so I'm actually just happy, happy to help the guys. We're kind of a little team. You know, some, some guys actually do all the. Do the lift for me because I trained them so well. They'll do the Gap is for me. So I have to get up as early.

Right. Well, you said that you've got the course, but you're also doing weekly videos, right?

No, no weekly videos. I used to. Okay. Yeah. But the course in the room, what I offer and then I offer coaching if somebody, you know, you know, I can't remember though, on the website, what's up, what you have. I think it's just by hour or half an hour. Right.

All right.

Okay. Typically. Typically a good coaching session goes an hour. Typically.

Well, you said you got the room as well, though.

Yes, the trading room. Trading room with trading alerts. I post charts in there. I do. I do videos in there sometimes. I could do. It's in Telegram. If you have Telegram app, huh? Yeah, you can, you can post live feeds in there. And since I used to, I used to pay a lot of money to be on those, those live chat services. I can't remember the name of them, but it's been a few years. But they're like a thousand bucks a month to run one of those, one of those rooms. And I thought, why don't I just go with Telegram? Everybody seems free. You know, that's overhead.

Well, it works so very cool.

It does.

Well, again, Troy, for. Thanks for taking the time for this today.

It's been a better place. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate the offer. I really do.

Very, very cool hearing about your strategy. It's different, which is cool. Also excellent that, you know, you got it focused in, you know, where it works with stock market and you got, you know, the support going with your group and everything. So. Excellent. Yeah, very good. And maybe at some point we can have you back on again, so see how things are going down the road, see where you've traveled to next.

Yeah, go ahead, Brian. Thank you. Nice, nice meeting you and connecting with you and I appreciate the offer to be here.

Thanks again. Well, everybody, thanks for being here and, you know, listening in today. And we'll see you all on the next episode of the Consistent Profits podcast. Take care.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today on the Consistent Profits podcast, brought to you by Inside Out Trading. Make sure to swing by Inside Out Trading and pick up your copy of the proven formula for consistent monthly profits. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe on your favorite channel and we'll see on the next episode. Cheers.

Okay. I have. One of my clients is a Grand Junction. She owns a ranch out there. Her name's Deb. Yeah, we, we actually, we lived in Fort Collins for a period of time.

Fort Collins is nice. Yeah.

Windsor actually right next to them. Windsor was part right next to Fort Collins.

Yeah. One of the things that's nice about trading and. Yeah. Working for yourself is. Yeah. You're like, I'm ready for something new. And you just kind of pick up and move.

That's what we're ready for. We're ready for. Yeah.

Very cool. Well, I'll tell you what, I really have enjoyed this and if somebody wants to, you know, connect with you, they like what they've heard here today. It's probably the best way to catch up with you. Just to swing by your site. Yeah.

Gapistraining.com. okay.

And so that's probably the best place. And they can, they can reach out to you through there or, you know, look into your offerings there.

Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, they can do that. They could send me a message through there to email my emails. Troy gapestrading.com or you send me an email through the website, a message through there. Yeah, I used to, I used to do like these webinars all the time. And, you know, I haven't done any of that for a while. I've been pretty complacent with, with the. With Gap is training. But, you know, I have a core group of guys I work with right now, so I'm actually just happy, happy to help the guys. We're kind of a little team, you know, Some. Some guys actually do all the. Do the list for me because I trained them so well. They'll do the gap is for me. So I have to get this early.

Right. Well, you said that you've got the course, but you're also doing weekly videos, right?

No, no, weekly videos. I used to.

Okay.

Yeah. But the course in the room, what I offer and then I offer coaches.