That was the moment that I really decided to take control of my finances by starting to learn about something that I can do from home. At least, you know, partial income for myself and my family. So I got into trading. And at the beginning, it was very rocky, like everyone else, that there are always people who started with some beginner’s luck, they make some money, and then they start losing everything else. It was rocky at the beginning. So I decided to get another job to just support my family and my life in Vancouver, until I slowly graduated from that job and now I’m a full time trader.

Robert Leonard 2:23
So here on the show, we generally recommend that millennials don’t day trade. And if back on episode two, I actually talked with Preston Pysh from We Study Billionaires. And we both talked about how we don’t personally day trade, and we’re not sure that it’s maybe the best strategy. So I want to hear from your perspective. I want to hear the other side of the argument because I believe you don’t really know something until you hear both the pros and the cons and you hear both sides of it. So can you provide an overview of what day trading is and why you think it might be a good strategy for a millennial investor?

Andrew Aziz 2:55
What day trading is, it is the process of trading a stock market or any other you know, financial instruments, like, you know, could be currency, could be cryptocurrency or anything else, but you trade them in a day, you really don’t hold any position overnight, especially for a stock market, when the market is open only during the market hours from 9:30 to 4pm, eastern time. The rule of thumb is you just close your position before the market closes. And then you’re not really exposed to any overnight changes when the market is actually closed. In cryptocurrency, when the market is open or in forex market and the market is open, really day trading can be extended all the way to 24 hours because just the market is open. For stock market, when I do, we do day trade, and we use the volatility of the market during the day. So we are not really looking for a longer timeframe.

To your question is day trading has a really bad reputation. I totally understand that, where it’s coming from and I know why. Because, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, Wall Street had access to a lot of knowledge and technology that retail traders like you and I didn’t have. I mean, even the internet speed was not as good as today. The platforms, the brokers, the commissions, it was all, you know, geared towards Wall Street professionals and only a certain group of elite in Wall Street have the access to the market in a way that they could really benefit from those volatility. B

ut now, and in those times a lot of people tried day trading and a lot of them failed for a lot of variety of reasons. First of all, they didn’t have any education. Second of all, they didn’t have the discounted commissions, and you know, those clearing ability for executing their orders. And also they didn’t have the tools for trading. So a lot of people I think in the last 10-15 years, especially at the beginning, lost money. And there was a lot of articles, a lot of myths coming out of you know, *inaudible that all day trading is a scam, it’s impossible, the game is rigged against you. And I think, it’s still some of it is true. But the thing is, the play has changed. Now everyone has an access to high speed internet in their smartphone.

I am in Vancouver and my internet speed is as fast as someone sitting in Wall Street. The platforms for trading, all of the tools, and all of the trading platforms that used to be only for Wall Street professionals, now they’re available $400 a month to retail traders. Anyone can go sign up and have an access to a very powerful, you know, trading platform. And even the commission is now much, much lower.

I mean, when even five, six years ago, when I started trading for the first time, I had to pay $10 per ticket. So buy $10, sell $10. So that’s $20 in commission. Now you’re looking at commissions as free commissions, I mean, zero trade, Robinhood, coming with no commission, although there are some disadvantages of those free commissions, but brokers that are really giving you a good execution for day trading, they are really, really low commission, as low as you know, a half a cent per share commission structure, which is absolutely astonishing for day traders.

To summarize for millennials, for what you’re, you know, famous for, do-it-yourself, you’re not really trusting our money in the hand of money managers of Wall Street anymore. And you know, this is the mentality that the millennials brought into modern life, that do-it-yourself. Just do it search, you know, go to YouTube, learn about it yourself. And you know, we try to do everything else. And I don’t really see a reason not to do it for our own finances. So to summarize, day trading used to be impossible, but now it is possible for three reasons.

First of all, the education is out there, you know, trading in market is not a black hole anymore, or a black box anymore. There’s tons of books, tons of online resources, either paid or free is available. The execution, the broker, and the commission used to be only for Wall Street, but it’s not anymore, you know, just do a search and see the last 10, 15 years, it’s been accessible to everyone. And also the tools that used to be available for Wall Street is now available to retail traders. It is not as good and as you know, high performance as those guys have access. For these three reasons, I would say that day trading has changed. And again, you know, that was a good point that your guest mentioned, that it used to be very difficult. But I do believe that it is now possible. I’m not saying it’s for everyone. But it’s still possible if you do it right. And if you get the right education and do the process properly.

Robert Leonard 7:12
Well, you brought up a point there about it’s not for everyone, and I do want to touch on that. But before we do, you’re talking about a lot of tools and resources that are available to investors. And you mentioned Robinhood, that’s actually a platform I use myself for investing. Do you have any other platforms or tools or recommendations for somebody that might be interested in day trading?

Andrew Aziz 7:31
Yeah, definitely. So before getting into that, I must mention that people have to differentiate between investing and trading. They are two different things, because in trading, when you’re investing, you’re really looking for a certain criteria and parameters to grow your money. Trading is different, you know, for example, some people buy real estate for life investment, and they live in there after 10, 20 years, you know, they sell it for profit. Some people are just realtor, they buy and sell houses, you know, in a day or in a week, and just try to make money out of this transaction. So we are day traders, we are really not planning to invest long term in any company.

And sometimes we try to make money out of the companies that are miserable, and we know they are going to fail, you know, no investor would, for example, invest in a company that he knows is going to be bankrupt. But traders, we actually can benefit from the company that is losing. You’re going to bankrupt by something we call the short selling, you know, we try to make money out of it downward.

So trading and investing is really different. And that’s very important. You know, as an investor, you have to somehow do a fundamental analysis about what you’re trying to buy or what you try to invest in. And sometimes people really make an emotional connection to their investment. But as a trader, you have to have the mentality, “I’m just here to make money, buy just these transactions. I don’t care if it’s Apple, I don’t care if I like iPhone or not, I just want to make money out of this move from Apple.”

So trading is different. So that’s why I’m saying that sometimes that Robinhood or some other brokers that are offering free trades for you, they are really good for investing what type of trainings that are usually long term. You don’t want to buy and sell in a matter of seconds or you know, minutes, you want to buy, maybe next week you want to sell, and maybe in two months, or maybe in five years, you want to sell your position. And you can use, you know, brokers and platforms like Robinhood.

But if you want to get into the active trading, you need to find the brokers that we call discounted brokers. These brokers are giving you access to the market for fast execution. And they’re not a lot of them. So you have to do a search and find the best rates and the best ones. Interactive Brokers in the United States is one of the famous ones, that is famous for low commission and also it gives you direct access to the market. SpeedTrader is the other one. CenterPoint Securities is another one. Cobra Trading is another one.

These are the names and I’m sure most of the people haven’t heard of, because again, trading is something that we need to find the right tools for them. And all of these brokers are providing you different platforms for trading. You know, for example, I myself use Interactive Brokers, and also for my trading platform, it’s called DAS Trader Pro that gives you immediate direct access. So I’m essentially sitting in the exchange, when I’m sending my order, it immediately gets filled. There is no intermediary, there’s no one that I have to pick up the phone and talk to. There’s no confirmation. As soon as I say buy, it goes into the market. I didn’t *inaudible if the Stock Exchange or Nasdaq and the orders get filled immediately and they have the shares. So these are specific tools that people, if they do the research, they can find.

But majority of the people and those are really costly… so you have to pay for those platforms and you know, those data fee to be able to day trade because again, the key in day trading is fast execution, because you want to make money out of those volatility during the day, and you need to have the execution really fast. A lot of people might say, “Well, why would I do that? Why not just doing, you know, investing or you know, trading in the long term, like swing trading?” Well, the answer to that is the profit that you can have from day trading.

You know, if you’re in Wall Street as a, you know, hedge fund manager, or if you have a mutual fund, if you can get 10% a year, you’re a rock star. If you have a family and have an investment portfolio, if you have 10-15% a year return on your portfolio investment, that is considered a really good return. But day traders on the other hand, they’re looking for adding to their account to 1 to 2% a day. So imagine you can add 20% into your account in a month, because we have around 20 trading days. So 20% a month you can add by day trading, but usually by investing, it’s the return that you can expect is much less than day trading.

Robert Leonard 11:33
So with that being said, why wouldn’t more people do day trading? If you can get those types of returns, why don’t more people do it?

Andrew Aziz 11:40
Excellent questions. There are a lot of reasons for that. First of all, day trading is a job, it’s a career. A lot of people want to do the investing on the side, a lot of people have nine to five jobs, they want to go to the job, they have a little bit of savings, and they want to have that savings grow for their family and for their future. So they can’t devote the time for day trading, you know, again, the market opens at 9:30 in the eastern time, in the New York time zone, and it closes at 4pm. And most of the activity, most of the good trading opportunities usually happen in the first two hours.

So as a day trader, you have to be available behind your desk around 830 in the morning, before the market opens, to be ready. And then you trade at 9:30, you probably will finish at 10:30, 11:00 or 11:30. So those times, you have to be available sitting behind your station and be ready for trade. And the majority of the people can’t do that, especially in the East Coast.

You know, people go to work at eight o’clock to five o’clock. But in the Pacific time zone, it’s a much better time zone because this is what I did when I had two jobs as a trader and also another job, was market opens at 6:30 in the morning, I was waking up at five o’clock, I was behind my desk at 5::30 after the shower and breakfast, and then I was getting ready for market to open. At 630, I always started trading. And then I was finishing my day by 7:38, just change and go to work. And I was at work at nine o’clock. And that was the privilege that I had under the Pacific timezone, so I could trade and I could keep my second job. A lot of people don’t have that privilege. So day trading is really suitable for people who have flexible hours, or they have hours that is not really conflicting with the market hours.

Of one percent a day, 20% a month, that can be true, then why not everyone in Wall Street is day trading. The answer to that is, you know, the you are limited to the amount of money that you can day trade. You know, for example, if you have $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or even $100,000, you can have a day trading account and you can add one or 2% a day in your account.

But if a bank or an investment firm, you’re managing hundreds of billions of dollars, they can’t really day trade, you know, day trading is not scale-able to any level. It’s good for making a certain amount of money, $1000, $2000, $5,000 a day. But if you have a huge account, like one of these hedge funds or investment banks, they can’t day trade. They have to move into the different styles of trading and investing. And that’s why they’re really limited to those 10, 15, 20 percent maximum a year. So why not everyone is doing it.

First of all, not everyone is having the opportunity to trade in those hours. Not everyone can expect the one to 2% return, based on their account size. So again, you’re limited up to you know, a certain amount, because the market doesn’t have that much liquidity. I can buy 1000 shares in one order, but I can’t buy, you know, a hundred thousand shares in one order, you know, it’s just, you’re limited to that.

And another thing is that day trading is difficult, it is a job, you know. Like not everyone can be a basketball player, not everyone can be really a medical doctor. It’s just some people can’t be a lawyer. This is something that a lot of people have to make sure that it actually fits their personality and fits their skills. And, you know, they want to do that. So like any other career, I think day trading is just limited to a certain group of people who are passionate and have the skills, and really the resilience to be in that business.

Robert Leonard 14:56
Yeah, I absolutely love what you said at the end there about it being a career just like being a basketball player or a doctor or anything like that. And I think it’s something that not a lot of new investors or people that just are looking to get into day trading think about. And when I first heard of this idea, it kind of blew my mind.

And I try to tell everybody that I talked to you, that’s looking to get into day trading, or just investing in general, you need to think of it this way, right? You go to school for 12 years, and then you go on to college for another four years. And if you do a master’s degree, you’re spending 16 to 18 years studying for a degree to learn a profession, yet you think you can become a professional day trader in the stock market overnight, you know, you have to be realistic about that. And that’s just not going to be possible. So you need to really make sure you’re putting in the time and effort to get educated and learn about the strategy that you’re about to implement before you do.

Andrew Aziz 15:45
Exactly, I mean, you mentioned the profession. And this is something that we always mentioned that to our students and our members that you have to look at it as a professional career. I mean, doctors, engineers, lawyers, they’re going through years of school, and they have to spend a lot of money on tuition and other stuff to become a professional and there is no guarantee for them to make any money either. You know, a lot of people come and ask me if I. you know, pay $5,000 for this course? Or if I do this or if I do that, is there any guarantee that it will make money?

Well, the answer is that of course not. Because you know, like any other professional career, you have to get the proper education. But if you make it or not depends on a lot of elements, including luck, that, you know, you need to go through and see if you can make it or not, I see a lot of doctors or engineers or lawyers that couldn’t make it, you know, in a financial situation, I am an example of an engineer. And I think I was a good engineer but that I just couldn’t make a good career out of engineering. I just get laid off and the city that I’m living in, there’s not a lot of engineering jobs, and I just couldn’t make it. So I had to shift my career to another thing. So you have to look at it.

And that’s why I’m saying day trading is a little bit different from investing because trading is a career. But investing can be a project on the side, which can be either done directly by your own knowledge and your own skill, or you can get financial advisors and investors for you to invest your money. The good thing is you don’t have to go through 30 years of school for day trading. I mean, yes, we do say that it’s like other careers. But a lot of times those careers are way more, you know, time consuming and way more expensive. Really to even try them.

Like if you want to become a lawyer or get an MBA or go to medical school, it is way more complicated and more expensive. And day trading, if you’re interested, you can always invest a little in education and you try a little bit the small share size and see if you like it or not. So you really don’t have to go through the years and years of education and tuition and practice and internship. So it’s a much faster process where you, thanks to the modern society of internet and all of the technologies that we have.

Robert Leonard 17:45
And when people just hear about a guru who’s pitching a course or something like that online, and they teach people how to, quote-unquote, get rich really quickly through day trading, those people are starting at such a disadvantage.

Andrew Aziz 17:57
Exactly. Unfortunately, that’s one of the very sad situations in our industry is that a lot of people start advertising trading, specifically day trading, as a get rich quick scheme. You know, when you go to social media, you see all of these yachts and luxury cars and parties and lifestyle that they’re trying to promote to people because they just know they want to attract certain group of impulsive people that they’re really looking for, to get rich quick. And yeah, a lot of people fell into that trap, unfortunately.

Research has shown I mean, the statistic that has shown that the average age of traders are usually 55. And they’re highly educated, college educated, and they used to be professional or they’re still professional. So when you look at it, the serious successful traders, they are the people who are not young and very attractive. They’re really people who are professional, and they know that they’re getting into the serious business. And that’s an average. But you know, I know the millennial, just cryptocurrency proved that millennials are ready, they’re eager to get into the financial market, and they are already really smart to really benefit from the financial market.

My only advice to people is when you’re getting into the financial markets, have a very healthy level of skepticism about any claim that you’re reading. Always make sure that these claims and these expectations are really reasonable or not. Just keep that healthy level of skepticism about anything and anyone when you go into the financial market.

Robert Leonard 19:25
So where should a millennial investor start their learning process? And then once they’ve started that learning process, when will they know that they’ve studied enough and they’re actually ready to get started?

Andrew Aziz 19:35
One thing that I’m always saying that is you never stop learning in this modern world. It doesn’t matter if it’s trading or investing or finncial market. Or if you’re in engineering. I mean, the world has changed, you know, the whole market has shifted that there’s no way that’s not like 50 years ago that you get a job and then you’re set for your life with your family with that job. You never stop learning. When you learn how to trade, you will start trading, you always continuously follow new resources. You go to the conferences, you read more, you watch more, you listen more, and you start learning.

So the answer to the second part of your question, you are never enough because the market is always changing, and you’re competing with other traders, and other traders are getting better, and the new tools are coming. It’s just that notion that you know I learned enough for life is just gone. And I think it’s in any career, not only trading, but there is a lot of information on YouTube, there’s a lot of information on Google, there are a lot of highly reviewed books on Amazon and other publishers that people can start.

If you’re, for example, interesting in day trading stock market, I myself have a couple of books on Amazon that you can go to. Just search my name and you can see the books and read the reviews and see if this is something that you want to pursue or not. But you know, I found YouTube is a really good source. There’s a lot of information in there and people can start… And obviously Google and there’s a lot of financial websites that you can start. You know, depending, it really depends on what kind of trading you want to do. For example, I personally don’t trade cryptocurrency. So if you want to invest or trade cryptocurrency, I probably won’t be the right person to go to.

Robert Leonard 21:08
So is there a point where an investor will know that they’re ready to start?

Andrew Aziz 21:13
So what we recommend is after the initial, you know, when you read about it, you get some fundamental knowledge about investing or trading that you want to do, we always recommend to do a simulation trading. And this is very, very important. I want to emphasize that to everyone. Never ever start with your real money, even if it’s a small 5,000 or 10,000 dollars. Never start trading with real money. There’s a lot of platforms that offer you simulated or paper trading with fake money trading. And we always recommend that do at least a couple of months of that.

Don’t get the fear of missing out. The market is out there for you. So don’t jump. A lot of people here go, “Oh Bitcoin! I just got *inaudible. Open an account. Deposit 20,000.” No, don’t get the fear of missing out. The market, the financial market is there forever. So you go and practice on some simulated accounts. So for our traders, we have a three months simulation program. And we’re not allowing anyone to go live trading with their, you know, life money, before a proper simulation. When they go through the simulation process, they have to learn the system, they have to learn the platform, a technology that they have to work with, then we tell them that you have to get a consistency of for example, 1% a day in a simulation account. And when they get to that consistency in the simulation mode, they are allowed to go open an account but they are forced to trade very small size because it’s very easy to trade the money on paper, it’s like a video game. I mean, hell, if you lost you can just redo the game.

But when you go into the real accounts, you have to be very careful, especially at the beginning, because this is a lot of emotional psychology. It also jumps into the game, which people really underestimate. And then slowly you grow your trading size so you can slowly grow. So a lot of people think oh, education simulation and $10,000 a month to you know, $2,000 a day. No, it’s not like that. So it’s education, simulation, and then you make $10 a day, make $20 a day and then you grow to $50 a day and then hundred dollars a day, and you slowly increase it because something that always people underestimate is the emotional aspect of trading. When the trade goes against you, when you are in a paper money or fake money, you don’t care.

Whereas with real money, then you start acting completely against your plan. Or sometimes you don’t get it out on time and you have to take a bigger loss or something like that. So people need to be make sure they’re ready for trading on a psychological site as well. So to answer your question, again, as a summary, the moment that you know, you have a certain level of consistency and confidence in your simulation mode, you can go and start trading live, but on a smaller size.

Robert Leonard 23:45
I think that psychological standpoint or that psychological aspect is so important. And it’s something that, like you said should not be underestimated. When you’re trading a paper account, it really doesn’t feel like anything, it feels like you’re playing with fake money because you are but when you’re using your real account, you can have the best plan set out in front of you. And you can decide that you’re going to follow that exactly. But when you actually start losing real money or psychological factors start to play in with your actual harder earned money, that plan completely goes out the window, and it becomes a lot more difficult to trade. So I definitely would not underestimate the psychological aspect of trading. Now, in that, you talked about paper trading and using simulated accounts, do you have any specific recommendations for platforms, tools or resources where somebody listening to this can do that?

Andrew Aziz 24:32
Yep. So if you are interested in stock market and day trading in the stock market, there is a simulator that we’re using. It is called the DAS Trader. D-A-S trader. So they have a website, https://dastrader.com/, and they offer real-time simulated accounts. You can have 25, 30, 50,000, or whatever amount that you want, and you have access to the real-time data of the stock products going up and down in the platform. And then you can actually trade. That’s what we use. That’s what we also recommend to our traders.

Robert Leonard 25:04
I also absolutely love that on Bear Bull Traders, on your platform, that you require people to start with a simulated account. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. And usually, in my experience, when I’ve researched other day trading programs, they’re usually trying to get you involved as fast as you can, you know, get started today, start investing now. And that opens up the investor to such a harder path where with your platform, I really love that you help new investors that way. I think it speaks a lot to what you’re really trying to do with the platform. So I really think that’s great. Now, you’ve written that you faced criticism, pessimism and doubt from your friends and family when you started day trading. And I’ve heard from other people that they’ve faced similar things. So how did you handle this and ultimately overcome it?

Andrew Aziz 25:49
Day trading, or, you know, I think success in any endeavor is coming from having a certain level of resilience and confidence in what you’re doing. I mean, if you don’t try and you don’t fail, you never know. When I started the trading, you know, as I mentioned early, you know, trading had a very bad reputation, especially day trading. I was really, really excited to have a lifestyle that I can work from home, I can work from anywhere in the world. And I can work for a couple of hours a day. And that was like a dream to me. Yes, it did seem like too good to be true, me. But I said I gotta try that. And if I don’t try it always wonder my life, what’s going to happen.

When I got laid off from my job, the company actually put us through a program, that company that let us go, you know, we were a bunch of employees, they were kind enough to put me through a program, these programs are usually helping, you know, there are some counselors to help you to, you know, get back on your feet and find another job. And I had one of these sessions with my counselor. And you know, she told me, “Oh, what do you want to do?” And I always told her that I want to start a business for myself. I mean, I think this is a good time, because I’m still young. I have no kids, I have no mortgage. But my responsibilities are not that bad, because my wife is working.

So I was thinking that if I don’t do it now, I will always wonder my life about what would have happened if I do that. And when I started reading and learning about the people trading, and I found that some people are doing it, and those are the people that… I did research behind them, I saw that they’re genuinely making it. And if it’s possible, they say 90% fail, 10% wins in day trading. So if those 10% can do it, why not me trying to be at least into that 10%? And I had a lot of doubts at the beginning.

But that’s something that all entrepreneurs, all business owners have. And they have to overcome that, you know, day trading is a business. But do you think when a new business opens in your neighborhood, imagine a restaurant or coffee shop, you think that business owner and an entrepreneur is hundred percent sure that he’s going to be successful? No, of course not. You know, they take the risk. And you know, taking a risk is part of any entrepreneurship lifestyle. About 2013 that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, posted something on Facebook, and I was following him and he mentioned that it has been 10 years since Facebook is out. And did we know that Facebook is going to be that big when we were starting it? He said, “No, absolutely not. People had a lot of doubts. And people were saying, ‘Oh, you are not going to make it.”

These people has tried to do social media in the past and all of those doubts and questions, but Zuckerberg said, “You know, we just didn’t listen to that when everyone’s doubting us, we were just coding, we were just making it, we were just thinking about it. And we had no idea that you know, social media, and you know, Facebook is going to be that big one day.” You know, like any other business owner, any like entrepreneur, you have to accept that there is a risk of failure where you want to do that.

There’s another way of doing that you just go become an employee and the risk is less. But as I mentioned earlier, there is a risk of getting laid off in this new market when the job market is completely changing. The machines are coming and the competition is coming. There is no security anymore. So you have to take the risk, even if you want to go the employment route, there is still the element of risk there.

Robert Leonard 28:57
With all of the different materials that are available and like you said, the bad reputation that day trading has had, what is a myth that you would like to debunk about day trading?

Andrew Aziz 29:08
I think the fact that they say day trading is impossible, I think that’s the biggest myth. I mean, there is a lot of people that are doing good, and they’re making a living out of it. And in our community, there are a lot of people that make $200, $300, $400 a day out of the market. And they’ve been done doing it for a long time. So the fact they say day trading is impossible, I think is the biggest myth. It is possible, but it is difficult. This saying that day trading is impossible, it’s like saying making a living out of poker is impossible.

There’s a lot of people who play poker, but not everyone can actually make a living out of poker. But we do know that there’s a lot of professional poker players that are just making money out of playing poker. I’m not saying that trading is like gambling and poker and stuff. But I’m saying that, you know, like professional athletes, that there are only a certain limited group of people that make a living out of professional athlete, trading is also possible. But there’s only a certain group of elite people that can actually make it.

Day trading is not impossible. I think day trading is possible. And people have to understand that if they want to enter the world of investing and trading, they’re entering an area that you have to compete with the sharpest minds in the world. So it’s definitely not a casual activity. And that’s another thing that a lot of people you know, have the smartphones, they want to watch the app and watch the prices going up and down, either stocks, crypt tools or whatever it is. But it’s not a casual activity. At least day trading is not casual, it is a job, it requires a certain amount of attention that you should have, and certain time of dedication that you should have during the day. It’s definitely not something cool that you want to do on the side, you need to have that seriousness for that.

Robert Leonard 30:45
When you look at those people that post the photos about trading from the beach, or you know, some fancy pool or things like that, that you’re talking about. I know exactly what you’re referencing. When you look up day trading, you often see gurus with all these really fancy setups, and they have really big screens, and they have four or five different screens and all these gadgets and things that look really fancy. Are all of those needed to be a successful day trader? And if not, what do you think are the must-haves when you’re getting started day trading?

Andrew Aziz 31:14
I think the must-have the should have is you should have at least the computer with a couple of screens. At least with day trading, what I found is that the means are very simple, but at least you need two or three screens. You know a lot of people are showing me, “Oh, I’m day trading from my smartphone.” I mean, you can’t really day trade by looking at one small screen on your smartphone, and they check Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and then go trade, it’s just doesn’t work that way.

Because day trading is the process of executions that unfolds really fast, you know, three, five seconds or minutes or something like that. So what I would say is, you know, it just might be very simple, but it really needs certain screens. When I’m traveling, I have a laptop, but I have three small portable monitor next to me. And I’m always you know, if I’m in a coffee shop or in a hotel room or something, I open up my laptop, but I just quickly put a couple of small screens which is connected via USB in my laptop so I can actually watch the market a little more because I need to have a look of different parts of the market to make sure that I’m actually not missing any good price action and good trading opportunity. But if you’re an investor, and you have some positions in Apple, other stocks, and you just want to check it casually… Yeah you can just look in your phone or just the laptop. But as an active trader, you definitely need more screens plus a good high-speed internet.

Robert Leonard 32:27
On those multiple screens, what are you looking for exactly? And what indications are you looking for in the market that might be a buy signal?

Andrew Aziz 32:34
Yeah, so what we do is every morning, we select a couple of stocks that we want to trade, I mean, the style of trading that we do is every morning, we might trade different group of stocks. One day, you might trade Apple, the other day we might trade Facebook or Twitter. Another day we might trade Uber or other companies. So every day, we select usually around four or five stocks that we think they have the potential of a big move during the day. So when I set up my screens, in one of the screens, you know, I might look at two or three.

So I have different charts and different stocks and watching them and I’m watching them for certain patterns. So we don’t really care about what the company is building, we don’t really care about what the company is doing. We don’t care about who’s the CEO and stuff. We’re looking at the price that goes up and down during the day, you’re looking for certain patterns and those patterns, you know, like channels, wedge, or support or resistant. And if those patterns appear, you know, based on the strategies that we have and we teach, we decide to buy or sell. Pretty much we’re looking constantly, slowly looking for those patterns to show themselves. And whenever they show themselves and everything is working, we start trading now.

Robert Leonard 33:39
Can you give an example of a type of pattern that you’re looking for?

Andrew Aziz 33:43
Yeah, so for example, a lot of times that there’s a pattern that we call them a flag, and this stock is making a big move. It goes up, you know, from $10, it goes all the way up to $12 to $13. So this is what we call actually like a pole. So it just goes up, strong move up. And then this starts you know trading on the sideways for a while that what we call them is a consolidation, which is like a flag that goes up and down.

But not too much, it goes from 10, you know, 11 to 12 comes back to 10, 11 to 12.30 comes back. And it’s just for about 5-10 minutes, it’s just consolidating, going up and down, doing nothing really. And when that forms, what we call them is a flag. And that flag is an indication that, you know, there is a possibility that a stock is breaking out from that black area or consolidation area to the upside. When we see that pattern, we decide to make a trade on that, on a potential breakout to the upside. So for example, start from $10, come to $12. And does a consolidation around $12. And then we buy this stock for the possibility of another move from $12 to $13, $14 and $15. And again, there are other criteria that you have to take into account. But when you see that pattern, and then the flag, plus a pole, plus a flag, usually it is a buy opportunity that we can actually trade based on that.

Robert Leonard 34:57
Now in this part of the show, I want to translate a little bit away from day trading into your entrepreneurial journey because not only have you been a successful day trader, but you’ve also built a successful business as an entrepreneur. And I want to hear more about that. I want to learn about that. So can you walk us through how you’ve built Bear Bull Traders and your process through that?

Andrew Aziz 35:16
Yeah, so when I started trading, you know, I started looking online, just doing a lot of Google search, a lot of YouTube material. And I had to get the pieces of information almost from everywhere, you know, the broker, and the platform, and how to use the platform. And then what are the strategies, and then there are psychology involved in the process. So what I really found was that there are all of these information are available out there perfectly. But there is no one single, you know, guide to walk me through 123456, you know, do these, buy that, subscribe to that, and do this, and do this. The information was there. But it wasn’t really simple to use and comprehensive in one place.

So I decided to write a book by myself, you know, as a PhD, my job as a researcher was to go and do research on an unknown topic, and then publish your results, either in papers, in a dissertation, or in a conference. Just publish your result. And that’s a skill that I learned as a PhD student. Just go into the area that you have no clue, no idea, and no education and just do research from all the resources and publish it. And that’s pretty much what I did in day trading. I mean, I had no background in finance or trading as a chemical engineer, I went into the world of trading and started doing the research and putting everything together. I experimented with that. And then I said, you know why not write a book.

I just wrote a book few years ago, I just wrote a dissertation about a different topic about electro chemical reactors, why not this one? So I knew how to write, I knew how to present. And I wrote a book, “How to Day Trade For a Living.” And I put my email address in the book and people who are buying the book are emailing me and say, “I read your book. Interesting. I have a question about that. I have a question about this.” And there was a lot of questions through email that came to me and I said, “You know what? Why not start a community that all of these people who are interested said about trading in common, you know, talk together like a forum.” And we had forums in the internet where people contribute knowledge to each other.

So I decided to start that community just to get people together. And there wasn’t really any financial incentives behind it. And I said, “Instead of me answering all of these emails, why not have a community, let people come?” And you know, I have a lot of questions as well.

Robert Leonard 37:22
I think that’s so interesting. I hadn’t heard that story before. I’m familiar with your book. And I’ve participated in your community. But I didn’t know that that was how it all played out. And I think it’s really interesting because we recently had Scott Trench from BiggerPockets on the podcast. And that’s exactly how BiggerPockets started. That’s exactly how Josh Dorkin founded BiggerPockets.

He really was just looking to build a community for real estate investors to be able to connect and learn about real estate together. And I’ve also talked to a good friend Kirk Du Plessis about options trading and he built his business the exact same way. So he was just looking for a community for options traders, and ultimately, it scaled into business. So I think it’s really interesting to hear that Bear Bull Traders came the same way. So if somebody is looking to build a community or an online business, like Bear Bull Traders do you have any recommendations as to how to grow an audience or grow a community?

Andrew Aziz 38:14
I think essentially, at the end of the day, what you should do is you should provide value to people, you know, when you are starting a business, that community, the first question that you have to ask is, “What can I do better to serve my clients or customers or the community that I’m trying to build?” You have to ask these questions. I don’t want to be wasting people’s time. Am I really adding value to them? And this is a question that I’m asking myself every single day with my team that what can we do better to serve people? What is missing?

I mean, go out and see who’s doing what and what is missing in their work. What is that they’re trying to, you know, offer, but they can’t? So this is a very, very important question. When I started Bear Bull Traders, there were other communities as well. It wasn’t that I was the only person who came up with the idea of having a community. But what I found about those communities is those communities were all about making money out of traders by either setting the course, or by giving them you know, access to a chatroom or an online environment that they can watch the moderators. But I really didn’t like the fact that that place is not built for people to get together.

You know, they were not even allowing people to exchange their email addresses together. You know, if I wanted to, I was part of those communities. And if I wanted to contact with someone that I really like, who I wanted to have a chat with outside of those environments, there was no way of me communicating. So what I said, “Okay, there’s something missing.” And what is lacking in my competitors, or available services, is how people can get together on a community base.

So again, to summarize, your answer is, if you want to start a community on trading or any other topic, or even if you want to start a new business, the first question that you have to ask yourself is how can I serve people better? Because the money is coming. I was reading a book and in the book there was a successful businessman who was giving an advice to people is, you know how to make money is not the bad question. It’s a bad first question. The first question should be, how can I provide service? How can I serve people better? The money is coming, you know, but money should not be your first question, how to make money out of this business, where are the people, but the how to provide them a better service, better quality, add something into their life.

Robert Leonard 40:32
That’s absolutely one of the biggest things that I’ve learned through studying all of the successful people that I’ve had on the podcast such as yourself, they almost all say the same thing. Don’t worry about the money, worry about providing value, worry about building something better than is already out there. And the money will follow.

Andrew Aziz 40:49
Exactly. I just say that all the time. And when you look at successful entrepreneurs’ story, they always went into that mindset of how can I serve you better. I mean, I look at my phone every day, there’s a new app that is up and coming. And a lot of them, you see the philosophy behind it… is they’re making a life better. Originally, they all started. And you know, Facebook, for example, for a long time was free. And you know, when I was watching social media, you know, when, as Zuckerberg, and his co-founder met a couple of investors, you know, the investors wanted to start monetizing Facebook soon, but they oppose and say, “I don’t know, it’s too early. I don’t want to just show ads to people right now. I just want to build something that, you know, is still, you know, add value to people.” You know, all of the successful entrepreneurs, they first think about how can I add value, money is coming, you know, making money out of that, in an ethical way, it’s easy, it’s just hard to add value to people’s lives.

Robert Leonard 41:41
Yeah, it’s a really interesting thing. Because if you start a business, and you’re focused solely on making money, I feel like it’s almost as if that’s not going to happen. Whereas if you’re focused on just providing value, the money will come and you have a better chance of that actually happening. So that’s a really interesting, just dynamic that I’ve noticed play out. And I think really what you focus on is going to have a big impact on the success of your business.

Andrew Aziz 42:03
Just an example of what I recently mentioned to a couple of my friends, imagine you’re a doctor, you’re a surgeon, you’re a neurosurgeon, you go into surgery, what is your first goal, your first goal is to counting the money that you’re getting paid from this surgery, or how to make hundred thousand dollars from the surgery? No.Your first goal, your hundred percent focus and attention is to save that patient, to do an excellent surgery and the patient comes out alive and healthy out of the surgery room. The money would come. I mean, they pay you, either pay your insurance or the hospital eventually pays you but the mentality that the surgeon goes into the surgery is not about “Oh, I’ll make money.” No, it’s just saving, doing the best that you can do to save that person. And often, they really don’t get involved into the money aspect of those practices. The money’s just coming in as a byproduct of their excellent quality service.

Robert Leonard 42:53
I’ve never heard an analogy like that. But I really like that. I think that was really good. And now just to wrap up the show, if a close millennial friend or family member of yours came to you and asked for advice on day trading, or even starting a business, and they had just a few thousand dollars, what is the number one piece of advice that you would give them?

Andrew Aziz 43:12
The number one piece of advice, if they come for me for an advice for trading is, are you ready to take a new challenge as a business or as a profession? Or you just want to passive investment? If you’re ready for a new challenge, you know, make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into. Because if you don’t know and if you just get into that, I guarantee you will lose your money. Even if you don’t lose your money in trading, you will lose your money on commissions, brokers, platforms and stuff, because you’re not 100% committed to that.

So you have to be committed to that. So that’s my first advice and first question. And then second one is if they really want to do that, I mean, last night I was having a chat with a friend that I was not in touch with for a while and he told me about this and I told him, “Yeah, do it but do the three months of simulation.” That was the first thing that I said you know, three months of simulation costs you probably couple of hundred dollars, $200 or $300 at simulation in three months. But if you go in make good trade, you make that money in a matter of seconds. Or if you make a bad trade because you don’t know what you’re doing, you lose, you know, 10 times of that money in a matter of clicks.

Robert Leonard 44:17
Yeah, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, paying $200 or $300 to learn and really start off at a much better spot is really cheap in comparison to if you jump in and make a bad first trade. You could lose a lot more than just that $200 or $300. So just you got to choose how you want to spend that money. Do you want to spend it on something that’s going to benefit your trading for the long term by helping you get educated first? Or do you want to learn the hard way by losing that money through a trade? Great advice there. Where can people learn more about you and all the different things that you have going on?

Andrew Aziz 44:46
You know they can check our website: https://www.bearbulltraders.com. I mean bear like animal, bear. And bull is just again, the bulls are the symbol of financial market. Bear and bull: https://www.bearbulltraders.com. We are also on YouTube and Twitter and social media, either they search Andrew Aziz or Bear Bull Traders, I’ll pop up. They can definitely follow me and have a chat with me. My email address is andrew@bearbulltraders.com. So it’s my personal email. I check it. I always try to get to people that have any questions. And if you’re really interested in trading the stock market =, the US stock market, I have two books on Amazon, they can just go to amazon.com or any other Amazon website and just search Andrew Aziz. Or you know, day trading or How to Day Trade for a Living. They are my first book *inaudible. And then you know, that could be a good starting point for them.

Robert Leonard 45:40
If you guys really enjoyed Andrew’s conversation today, I would highly recommend you take him up on his offer, shoot him an email at the email he just provided. Let him know that you heard his show and that you enjoyed it. And then he made a big impact on you and have a conversation with him. And I know he’s more than happy to do that. And I would definitely take advantage of that. It’s an invaluable time that you have available to you. So definitely take advantage of that. And I’ll be sure to put links to everything that we talked about in the show today in the show notes that you can access. And I know we talked about a lot of different tools for trading. We talked about Andrew’s community on https://www.bearbulltraders.com. We talked about his books, YouTube, all of that, I’ll make sure I put all of that in the show notes for you to check out. Andrew, you’ve provided a ton of value today. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Andrew Aziz 46:23
Well, thank you very much for having me. And thank you very much for having such an interesting topic for your podcast. I know a lot of people would benefit from this, especially the millennials about investing because you know, as I mentioned, we are a generation of do-it-yourself. And we are a generation of very curious people that just want to learn everything. They’re not taking anyone’s word. And I think the amount of value that you’re providing to people, knowledge is just amazing. Thank you very much for having me on that. And thank you very much for your audience who are listening to our podcast.

Robert Leonard 46:55
I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Andrew Aziz 46:57
Thank you, me as well.

Robert Leonard 46:59
Alright guys, that’s all I had for this week’s episode of Millennial Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro 47:05
Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.