Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in to the Straight Talk Vermont show. I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director of Service Render Incorporated. And Straight Talk Vermont is one of our programs for many years. And the cable show is part of it. And I want to make a couple announcements. So those of you who've been to the University Mall and noticed that we have a big red curtain in front of our so wonderful gallery is because we're renovating it. And we're very happy about that. We're going to make it look real nicer in there. And so we can, we'll take it off all these shelves in there and put some flat screens on the wall where you can, you know, we can view the art better. And then we'll have some events in it as well. So stay tuned for that opening to be, and I keep changing the date but I think it's going to be at the end of the month this time. And so I'm here with my very special guest today. And our name is Mara Collins from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. How are you doing Mara? I'm very good. So happy to be here with you. Thank you very much. We're talking about my favorite subject. Oh, yeah. We're talking about affordable housing. And so let's talk about affordable housing. Now, this is, so you were... There is none. End of show. That's damn right. So let me, there is none for Mara. Hey, you're right. So let me ask you a question though. Affordable housing. What, what is it? First of all, I think it just felt like a good way of saying that, you know, we believe in affordable housing within our agency. Not just, not jerry to see, but everybody's, who was working on so-called using word, affordable housing. Because what is it really, how's that so? How can you come up with that? What's the ratio on, like, you know, from the, you know, trying to stay with the rich real estate to... Yeah. ...the poor. Now that's, now how, how that fit in affordable housing mixing with high-end places or housing or how, how does it work? I don't... Yeah. It, it's always the first question I'm asked, and it's such a good one because it's so fundamental. We all use the term affordable housing, but what do we mean?   If Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or whoever were to show up and want to buy something, something tells me they would not have any trouble. But for the rest of us, not all the housing's affordable. And so what we do is we use a really overly simplistic, problematic, academic standard of what's affordable. We say 30% of household's income should go to their housing plus their utilities. So we all have different incomes and so we all have different number of homes that we'd call affordable and different price points that would be affordable. And we don't just all have different incomes. We'd all have different things going on in our lives. So I have three young children. I have high childcare costs. That means maybe 30% isn't the right number for me.  Maybe I spend more on transportation or health care costs. And so what's affordable to me is going to further be lower and lower number, meaning there's less and less homes that are affordable to me. So we really look at that difference between what folks are earning and what they can afford. That's kind of tricky. It makes sense. 30% is, I think that's pretty high. It's interesting, the number used to be 20% and then the feds moved it to 25% and then they moved it to 30%. And you know why? And it's because they didn't want to pay so much in rental assistance. The Section 8 program at the time was getting too expensive and at the time renters had to pay 20% of their income toward their rent and the federal government, HUD, paid the rest in their Section 8 program and then that cost too much. They said, you can afford to pay 25% and that went on for a while and it's been many, many, many decades since it got shifted to 30%. But like I said, it's not the right number for everyone. And so what we do is we look at, all right, how much are people earning? What's the median income? If we sorted all incomes in order and picked the middle point, how much could they afford and how many homes are renting at that price point or on the market to be purchased at that price point and right now there are not many. Yeah, yeah. So we're talking about affordable housing. So once again, I got to talk about that a little bit more because when you go over people's income, that's what you do, you order income and you say, okay, here's 30% of your income and these other things you have to do to live, your systemic stuff you need. So, but there is a point where it's that your rate of pay don't go up and but the housing go up, everything goes up but you're 30%.  So how can you afford any place, you know, seem like it, you know, because there is no place like that seem like it out. But it probably is, I don't know. Yeah, and that is what we've seen, especially in Chittenden County, where I don't have the numbers in front of me but from the 80s we've looked at, you know, how much pay has gone up on average every year and gosh, I think the number is like 2.5% a year and then rental prices have gone up 4% and home ownership prices have gone up 5%. You know, and I don't have those numbers exactly right but I do know that the housing costs are going up far bigger and so if you were to graph it out, it's like the yawning jaws of an alligator. You know, the difference between incomes and house prices are getting farther and farther apart from each other and so if you're renting, housing is becoming less and less affordable every year and your rent may go up some year and you can't afford it anymore and you need to move and where you're going to go to with the vacancy rate being what it is. There's not a lot of apartments out there. Homeowners have it a little easier in that if they get a fixed rate mortgage then their home prices largely, their mortgage stays the same for 30 years. Now their taxes go up, their utilities may go up, other things may change but that is one reason why a lot of people decide you know what, I need to hop off the roller coaster that is the rental housing market and try to move on to being a homeowner. Yeah that's very important to be a homeowner you know, I think, well, a lot of people, well it's important based on the things you just said but I think also a lot of people just don't want to be, some people just don't want to be a homeowner. So that's the choice you know. So with the Vermont Housing Finance Agency you are the executive director. How many, is it statewide? It is statewide. We were in the early 70s and late 60s there was a new investment opportunity that the federal government came up with and they said every state can use these tax-exempt bonds and finance affordable housing with them but the Save Vermont and every other state in the nation needed to pick an agency to administer that program and so in 1974 the legislature created us and so we were created by statute and the governor appoints our board and the board then hires me and I hire the rest of the staff but otherwise we really don't have a lot of connection to state government. We aren't state employees, we don't get state appropriations every year, we aren't reliant on the state budget or anything like that. We operate completely separately and all the risk of our investments are on our own. We're not under the ratings of the state fully. We instead sell these tax-exempt bonds and we live off those investment earnings as a way of supporting our work, large part. So, wow. We tell them no taxpayers don't give like a dollar or nothing. We don't get direct appropriations. Last year was one of the first times the state wanted us to start up a really innovative weatherization program for renters and owners to button up their homes and they did give us some appropriations to start up that one program but we don't get any kind of ongoing support from the state in that way. Wow. Personally, I think you should, I think you should get some type of funding from people. Well, but the system works the way we have it. I mean, there is a department of housing within the state and there's a state housing trust fund that funds housing and conservation that another organization administers that... So, the state is contributing to housing just not through VHFA directly. There are other things the state has done though. There's a state housing tax credit and we're able to sell those tax credits to fund affordable housing. It all gets really complicated really quickly which is also probably part of the problem is that a lot of this isn't really straightforward. Right. So, do you sell the tax credits to individual banks? Banks and insurance companies and they can write off, it's called the bank franchise fee, banks have to pay a tax on how much they have in deposits and they take a tax credit off that tax bill that they have, that tax liability. And so instead, they invest in affordable housing which is a great thing. So, do you guys do that? Do you invest in... Do you build homes? We have... We work on the home ownership side and the rental side. For home ownership, we're a mortgage lender. So, if you're within our income limits and you want to buy a home within our purchase price limits, then you wouldn't go to VHFA. We don't have branches across state. Instead, we work with participating lenders, credit unions, mortgage companies, banks, and you'd walk into one of those and you'd say, here's my info, here's the kind of home I want to buy, and they would say you qualify for a VHFA loan and we offer up to $15,000 in down payment assistance. So, it's a pretty good deal. And so that bank or credit union will do the mortgage with you and then after that mortgage closes, they turn around and sell that loan to us. On the rental side, we don't make loans to individuals who are trying to rent an apartment, but instead, we give giant loans and these tax credits to developers of affordable rental housing. And so, there's a whole network of affordable housing developers, the Champlain Housing Trust and the Cathedral Square Corporation locally are some nonprofits. There's also Summit Development Group and Snyder Company, some for-profit developers. We have a lot of developers and builders who come to us and get millions of dollars in loans and that helps build the building that becomes the affordable apartments. I know that affordable still kills. Get me a loan. Don't get it as well as I want to. So, weatherization. I used to sit on the board of directors for CBOEO and I had a weatherization program, but what was that about for you guys? What kind of work do you do within that? Yeah, CBOEO and statewide, we have six weatherization assistance program administrators locally and that weatherization program weatherizes homes for people who are lower income. There's an income threshold. Again, we look at, we always judge everything by where the median income is and that serves people at 80% of that median income. So, that's the bottom part of homeowners. The program we were asked to stand up goes above that and serves people who earn 80% of median up to 120% of median income. So, we're trying to hit a kind of more modest income for mantras because there's a lot of homes that need weatherizing and are poor quality and folks are not, they don't earn the kind of money that they can just go get a loan or pay for it on their own. They still need some help, but they're all paid for for free through the weatherization assistance program. So, we're working with Efficiency Vermont and they are providing grant money to help pay for, let's say, half the cost of the project and the other half these households can get a loan for, but it's not a loan to them. We wouldn't look at your income, your credit rating, your assets, anything like that. We instead look at the home and we say, is this home really need to be weatherized? And if their utility bills are really high then it qualifies for this program. And what happens is you pay that back over time on your utility bill. So, we're working with Vermont Gas and a lot of the electric companies in the state so that you pay this back over the long term makes it more affordable. So, do you, part of this, I don't know, you might know, you shouldn't know. Replace windows, you do that, or help repair a foundation. A lot of, you know, I'm just trying to say, a lot of problems occur to, like, whether problems come through the windows, foundation walls, even in tuck pointing on your house or replace sliding, that's part of the weatherization program. You're exactly right, that that's where the needs are. And weatherization often doesn't include those things. It's looking more at insulation, air sealing, things like that. So, around your windows, but not necessarily new windows. But what we often find is that a home that needs weatherization also needs those other kind of repairs you're talking about, foundation work, you know, new roof, something like that. And so, what we're trying to do is work. There are revolving loan funds in the state that are available to folks. And these loan funds are really affordable and their income targeted to folks. We're trying to figure out how to marry these weatherization funds with those programs and bring them together so that at once a home could not only get their weatherization work done, but also the health and safety, the rest of the work that may need to be done on the home. Wow, this just seemed like, I mean, you guys do a lot. How many offices do you have? Just one. And frankly, we're not using it very much right now. Right here in Burlington. Five floors in that place or something, right? No, there are three floors and a lot of people are working remotely, so it's pretty empty right now. But we have 40 employees and we've been around, well, next month we'll turn 48 years old. Check that out. That's good. So, I know you guys do a lot of things and you partner with a lot of organizations. Like, who do you partner with? Who do you partner with other? So, I guess more of agencies that do similar work or ones that that do just different types of work that need your service like community action or please people like that. Do you partner with community action? I can't think of some of the names when that comes in my head, but who do you? Well, it's easy because my answer is we'll partner with anyone. We are agnostic. Housing impacts everything. It impacts where our jobs are and how economically vibrant the state is. It impacts our health care outcomes. It impacts the wear and tear on our roads and bridges and our school systems. There's always a link back to housing. So, we partner with our congressional delegation and federal partners like HUD and Rural Development because that's where the money's coming from, frankly. So, we're always going to want to partner with them and we have just such support from all those federal partners. We partner with other statewide agencies that either have money or set policy around housing. So, the governor has a department of housing and community development we work a lot with. There's an agency very similar to us, but they do slightly different things that has a mission of both housing and conservation, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. We partner with them a lot. There's a state housing authority that runs the Section 8 program. We partner with them a lot because we may help fund to build the building that's affordable, but then sometimes folks still need that Section 8 voucher to make it affordable. And then there's all the municipalities that we work with. There's a lot of housing commissions. We get really involved in helping to guide what planning and zoning should be because we may say we need more housing, but if the local community hasn't set up their community to be housing ready, then all the money in the world isn't going to fix it. But then there's the community organizations like you were talking about. You could focus on lots of demographics or situations that there's whole partners we work with. So, we do a lot of work to prioritize our money. So, at the apartments we finance are targeted to people experiencing homelessness. So, we do work with all the community action agencies and the homeless shelters and service agencies and designate agencies who are serving people without homes. We also work a lot with manufactured home communities. People call them mobile home parks. And so, we... 8% of the state's housing are manufactured homes. And so, it's important that we know what's happening there. Both individual developments, what's happening and sort of broader statewide policy. So, I mean... So, let's talk... I'll just make your opinion, you know. So, I live in... I have a lot of opinions. So, we're going to be here a while. They ain't going to write. I'm with the right person, too. So, I live in Winnieski, right? And so... They're doing a lot of things right there. A lot of incredible things. I work with the mayor and Christina a lot. Also, I'm on the school board for anti-racism committee. I'm the Winnieski Democratic chairman. I've just been appointed by the governor's chairman to be the human rights commissioner. One of them. What's that? And so, I'm sure there's some other things I do, but I got to look at my own damn resume. So, anyways, but there's an issue that's been around there and a person who owned his property, 300 Main Street, has got eviction notices going out to, I think it's 24 families on... You got to go. Because he want to make it... He want to make more money. That's all basically what he's saying, because he just want to make it more luxurious and charge more money. That's what he's saying. So, I guess that means he want to make more money. Here we are with families, not individuals, families, you know what I mean? And they all target our new Americans. And so, are you guys... I know the mayor and the Winnieski Housing Authority and others are working tirelessly to try to figure out what the hell they're going to do. But for me, a lot of them is going to be those families and youth are going to be displaced. Displaced meaning they're not going to be around their friends, families. They're not going to be able to go to our schools. We don't see schools. And not going to be around, you know, do the things that they... They all, normally those... Normally new Americans who lives in those together know each other. And they depend on each other for something, you know? So, what do you think about that being evicted? 24 families because... But these are my words, because they want to make more money. But that was their words too, because they want to bring it up nice and... And make more money. So, what do you think about that? But just being evicted and know where to go, all of a sudden, boom, you got to go, you know? It is absolutely heartbreaking. It is so hard to imagine, especially in this market, that these families are going to have to try to find new places to live. And, you know, we've been financing rental buildings for 40 some odd years. And I can tell you that after 25, 30 years, it's not unusual that buildings need a big renovation.  And so, it is very fair that we need to, I would call it, recapitalize, put more money into housing and make sure it's meeting the needs of the market, you know? We all have walked through or seen pictures of homes that are quite outdated and not meeting today's needs. So, that's fair. But there are ways to do this, to invest in housing that does not evict everyone all at once, flooding the market and raising the rents by so much and all that. So, that is one reason why it's so important that the programs, that the government subsidized affordable housing programs like VHFA administers would never allow for that. You know, we have restrictions about how housing needs to remain affordable. So, it's really exciting that we have just under 14,000 apartments statewide that are, I would say are, I would use a capital A and capital H. They're affordable housing, meaning they got some kind of government subsidy. Like I said, we all have a different definition of what's affordable, but I'm saying, you know, VHFA or the state, and somehow Feds were involved in making about 14,000 apartments affordable. And for those, they cannot do what is being done in Winooski. And so, there are so many people rallying though about this. And that just speaks so much to the heart of Winooski in that there are a lot of communities across this country where when this happened a community would say, ooh, my tax rolls are gonna go up. I'm gonna, you know, the value of this property is gonna increase, meaning I can get more in tax revenues and they'd be happy to see this kind of investment. Winooski is taking a very different approach to say, we are worried about the people of Winooski who are impacted here, these 24 families. And so, there are so many people working so hard on this issue. Housing authority and the local housing providers and I know that the refugee resettlement agencies got involved and the little bit of silver lining is that there are a lot of people who are working very hard to try to help this situation. Yeah, that's kind of weird because I think a lot of tenants have you know, they could have raised your rent or even evict you like when they feel like it. I had a building in Chicago that was finally sold and this was in Chicago and like a person and we were trying to get the person out because I would never pay rent so you just can't throw them out, you can't turn off the lights, you can't change the lights, you can't do none of those things so you just have to go to court, right? And so there you go, you gotta pay the court court. So I you go to court to try to see if we can find some get that person out of there, actually evict that person and the judge told me she said, Mr. Wilson, I'm so happy you flew from Vermont to all the way to Chicago but you can't handle this, you gotta have an attorney you can't do this yourself so there's all the time that money right there was all messed up, right? And then we still have to upkeep the building and so I had to hire an attorney and I often went back up to the next time I kind of flew up there because I threw my family and friends up there that was one of the good reasons for me to go and to meet with the attorney in the court building and so when we went to the court you know the court time was one o'clock or whatever and never happens and so I'm sitting there with the attorney in the court and waiting on the attorney to come up and for like two hours and then the judge finally got to the judge and he just said well the person is not here the tenant is not here and so let's give her another chance so meanwhile this cost me $250 an hour to pay this attorney, he's sitting in the courtroom for two hours we laugh and talking and if I was him I'd be laughing and talking too and then it happened again so all the money that I was out of to get that tenant out of there $250,000 an hour for attorney and now of course I'm looking at the bargain basement for attorney and that was like one of the cheapest rates and the pay this rate while sitting there with this guy and then flying in she kind of went from Vermont and I'm like wow with tenant's rights they really have some tenant's rights here and so here these people don't get nothing, you got to go that's it every state is different and Vermont does have fairly robust landlord tenant laws that protect tenants but situations like this are possible and like I said it is heartbreaking there's a lot of resources to explain to tenants what their rights are through CVOEO they run a statewide landlord tenant program called Vermont Tenants and they have explanations of what landlords rights are and tenants rights they've even put it in like a graphic novel format they've translated it into lots of different languages so trying to get that information out to people to know what's possible but at the end of the day this is still possible I know it's like it's incredible I didn't think they could do that but obviously they can here in Vermont so it's kind of weird how things happen like in Chicago where I was born and raised like Maya was part of the civil rights movement with the CLC operation Brad Bress operation PUSH national, you know in the almost ACP you know all these people that I worked with I worked with Jesse Jackson and his wife Jackie's come out and Mary Hall Washington because my mother was like a big shot in the movie and things she did in the world and and so I always fought for civil rights I always fought for equity and inclusion and the diversity and justice so that's like been all my life you know and when I came into Vermont when 89 was the widest state in America I think it might be second or something which is alright obviously I came in 89 so I understand I got to get some white people because I would be this long so I told my mother I was coming to Vermont and she said good because I just come up there and I was a young person and I said good good you're going to make a difference and I thought she probably meant that for civil rights because I'm African-American and that I'll make a difference because there is not many who looks like me and the person who was brought up to believe in inclusion and equity and working together everybody and and so one year I said mom mom she said I was going to make a difference I said mom I'm making a difference she said what you do boy what you do and I said Vermont is the second widest state in America and she said she said you know it was funny she said boy I told you I was going to make a difference I know single-handedly double the rate of your community or your neighborhood I know I'd be someone friend I'd be like damn look what they think it's five black people in the same room at the same time but anyway so but since Floyd and Black Lives Matter and police differences with people of color people around the world they should hire people who can work in the areas of justice equity diversity inclusion and all these in everybody every company just about have hired these people to work on these issues and so couple things so how do you how do you think that's going to make a difference because like a lot of people for instance I'm going to use myself as an example I'm part of the Vermont State Police Fair and Partial Policing and that's for everybody Fair and Partial Police and I work with the community part too and they got it all in their website and everything like that like for instance they're not Vermont State Police but they're Browns Police we were talking about data collection for people who stopped right and that time it was 0.1% of African Americans live in the state but Browns had the nerves to stop 85% of people who look like me in the state 85% man and then we're only 0.1% how's that and they got this Fair and Partial Police and they don't think it's they don't have to have nothing to do with racism they don't think they have nothing to do with we count quite frankly that have a lot to do with it right and so when you talk about Fair and Partial when you talk about equity and inclusion like no more of the back rooms let's work together make sure we bring people who look like Bruce or Bipod in the back rooms or not in the back room just get rid of the back room just bring them to what do you think about this Bruce give me an idea what you think about it and so do you think that people are just like hiring all these positions just because they say they got them or you know or things going to change it depends on the day and my mood about if I think this is a wonderful investment long overdue and really impressive because you know we followed suit we've done that in the last couple of years and in doing so the idea was we didn't just want to make commitments that said we're going to do X, Y and Z and not put our money where our mouth was it was important that I pay a good amount of money to people to say this is your job this is you know what you will be held accountable to and their job is to hold the rest of the agency accountable to these commitments and if we don't have a internal accountability like that then we're never going to meet those commitments that we put down on paper and set a press release about so I do think it's an important step I also think that the proof is in the pudding and I think that this has been over 400 years in the making and it's not going to change in two years and it seems to be moving very slowly and in the internal work I've done I keep reading don't try to move too fast that it's performative or it's not real or that you haven't brought people along and engaged with people directly served so in many ways it is this constant push pull of we don't want to do too much without making sure we have that feedback loop of people who are directly impacted by these programs and these initiatives we want to make sure we're hearing their voices directly and that they have authority and agency in their voice and that just means a much more deliberative process a slower process because we have to revolutionize what we've been doing I mean the title of my agency is Vermont Housing Finance Agency and housing and finance were two key tools in this nation to systemically keep people who look like you away from communities that looked a lot more like me and so it is hard deep work that starts with the people doing the work and changing their own hearts and minds looking at the policies the programs the practices shifting the money seeding power I mean this is a revolution and so it's you're never going to have a revolution by hiring a DEI director but you're not going to have a revolution without doing some of those things either well well first and foremost too is that you know I know how to get people to understand more people who don't look like me about persons who do look like me and how to think about it it's education and understanding it's not about you need to bring Bruce up to the front table because what you need to do is like you say hire them hire people like me and get their ideas about how you think we should move forward on these issues based on for everybody and then you'll get some good answers that the rest of the people can work on because a lot of the people who don't look like me white people get their answers from Ancestral you know don't talk to him don't hang out with him don't do nothing with him and the way they will raise it's hard to teach the old dog new tricks it's as hard as hell to do and that's for anybody where you were brought up great-great-great-grandmother I'm not blaming no great-great-great-grandfather but the things that they learned from their parents or Ancestral and the things that their beliefs are just embedded in them that's them, that's how they are and how are you going to change that how are you going to really do that it's hard it's ways you got to do things you got to do the education piece if you're going to do training around diversity, equity and inclusion you got to learn about the person that's primarily what this is about who's about me a person like me you have to do role plays you got to understand why I'm doing like this why am I wearing my hat to the side coming from south side of Chicago blah blah blah why did I do the things I do why did I do the things that I did they got to learn they got to look at me objective and non-just mental first and foremost another reason why that's kind of hard because I don't live next door to white people I think I do probably I do I live next to a white person I do that's white people there most diverse community in the state I believe anyways most lot of people don't go to the next door don't go to church with them don't hang out with them don't walk down the street with them so how are you going to get to know a person like me how are you going to get to know a person like me you'll see me on tv you'll see me in a magazine newspaper you'll hear about me but you're not going to know a monster about me probably what you think about me is something that you learn from your ancestral something that you look at the black people's neighborhood look at how they raise their kids you don't see them like some really popular cool thing you might see a lot of that in Vermont because it's a good cool thing to show things about somebody doing well in Vermont as a person of color because there are numbers so that's how it's all about the education to me I think they can save their money by hiring lets you go hire a person who have life experience and I got plenty of life experience on justice equity version and inclusion plenty that's all that's my whole life and I still do it that's all I do that's all the boards and committees and commissions I sit on right today here in Vermont that's all I do and so I'm better than nobody but I can at least give you a good story and a good program I can at least come up with ways that you can understand me and maybe compete with some of your your thinking of how you are raised if I give you a stereo a week of role plays about me and the things that I've done in my life and people like me act the way we do or things that some are a lot of other people who are who will tell you about their heritage why they were determined you just learn those things you're not really changing how you're brought up but you're amending to the following you're just kind of like oh that's why they do that he does that or they do this and so that's what we want that's what I want people to understand that's the first part why people are who they are and you know how housing can help is to create those communities because if you're not invited on Bruce's cable talk show then you may not have an opportunity to meet Bruce and talk with him but another way that I see the institutions like VHFA can help is by ensuring that we have affordable housing in every part of Vermont even down by the waterfront in Burlington and in Shelburne and in you know some of these towns and making sure that we have mixed income integrated communities like Winooski I think is a prime example where you know they really are walking the walk of welcoming new Americans but also a lot of folks and it's working the school district I've heard does a wonderful job at trying to be very welcoming and so I can't single-handedly overcome all that you were just mentioning but I can say but I can say that I think it's incumbent upon all of us who especially in leadership positions to look at what our job is and to figure out so what can we do with that if I run essentially a housing bank then what can I do? I can put my money there and that's invest in things and that's important whoever run I should know this will get in trouble whoever runs the transit authority you know Green Mountain Transit or whatever I hope they're asking that question of themselves about what they can do to create that sense of community and safety and conversation and things like that I hope that all the non-profits CVOEO and the rest are asking themselves what can we do to try to create that environment for dialogue and connection I hope that the governor's office and all the different groups you know if you're working on climate change issues or economic development if you're a small business owner what are you doing it's going to need all of us we all have to band together to set this up and be successful well just so you know I am on Green Mountain Transit just the equity diversity board of course you are that shouldn't surprise me so we need everyone our next meeting is April 7th at Nuna 130 down at their main office if you want to show up and just hear what we talk about it's a lot of us and we have great ideas about how we're going to help and that's important every I say industry but every individual needs to be asking themselves what are they doing to try to create that educational opportunity that ability to connect you know we like to in housing we like to create community spaces community gardens things like that so there's an opportunity for people to cross paths and see folks who look different than from them but also then have a chance to sit and spend some time in that community space and connect so let's talk about one more thing and then you can say anything you like or you can say anything you want anyways I really am I think you know that that's good though but so let's talk about my different because I had well first of all on this show I had Taisha Green, Yasmin and I had Erin McGuire they're all equity directors and my girl Taisha Green is on because she used the word not you know this wasn't appropriate for her you know she used the words well I'm not going to I can't quote her with the words she used because I'm not going to I can't remember but I know that they she left yesterday or something the whole staff left everybody left too so you know she was very she was dedicated she was smart and she meant she was doing the work and she was getting people out there I haven't seen so many people of color since I've been in Vermont probably I've heard that from others she was very powerful she's very powerful and people who are non people which is incredible who believed in just whatever they believed in how they can make things how they can help out for themselves it's not about how I'm going to help Bruce out it was a cross-sector I know bank presidents who were there families that were there it really was very powerful so it wasn't about it was about let's support this event the meeting of what June team meant and also what did it mean to them see that's the main thing how it meant to you how can I make myself better if I was a white person talking how could I make myself better based on what I can do and we're not saying everything is rocket science but you start off at elementary we're not going to move so fast we're going to make sure that we get it right first let's listen and get the steps right and so that's all I ask people to do is believe in what you what do you want the most from to get things better how can you help so you might think that's elementary but when you do it it's rocket science that's all they had all those people there everybody was there I've seen so many people that I knew who knew me and I was hanging out with the mayor he was there and people and performances some little gangsters out there that I knew trying to work with them good food food right so the good thing about I I'm excited when I get to see all the people I work with they're up there with their goals and so it was a beautiful day I want you to S's and when you see part of those in Brunswick too so what do you think about her I don't know if you knew what her platform was what she was leaving I just know what I've read in the papers so I haven't talked to her directly I mean I messaged her best wishes and she told me what her plans were in Minnesota but I don't know the back story on that so I'd never want to speak on her behalf or anyone else who's doing this I want to know what you thought about by the person of equity she said right here say Brunswick call me diversity I'm race she'll be like straight up with you on that she ain't planned so I want you to think what do you think about that she just couldn't get along with Mayor Monroe that she couldn't get along with him and he did some things that like I know of something she should have been involved with I know this for a fact with the police negotiation or reorganization and then she took her out the picture and put somebody else in it and I don't know the whole specifics I don't know everything about it but she thought she should have been part of the negotiation team I think she should have been with the title but he didn't allow her to do that and he took some power for her to give some other white person to do that so she thought she should have been a dead person if he used her budget to do it which is I don't think that's right but I can't wait to see you Mayor Monroe we're going to top but um so I know it's sad I mean obviously no one wanted this outcome I think I can guess that by what I've read in the papers I don't this is it's hard work it's complicated I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes none of these people have me on speed dial so um I just don't know what's happening but it really does hurt the work that's going on when things like this have to happen because um there was such momentum that was happening and it did seem so exciting and so it's important that that come back and that everyone learns from whatever happened grows reflects I mean I'm a big reflective practitioner I always I'll be driving home from this and I'll be thinking about what did we talk about how did I answer what and not in a Neville gazing kind of way but more in a how can I grow from this how can I learn what and and I just think that with this racial work that's what needs to happen after all these interactions each time you know we have a conversation and you're feeling as a white person maybe I'm feeling a little uncomfortable I'm uncertain about what language I should use or was this okay to say or do or you know am I really um do I have a bias in what my gut reaction was to something that happened those are the things we all have to reflect on and learn from and grow from and then talk about and you know study and things like that so it's a journey we're all on but this it is a bumpy one it's like right now yes you know I'm not mad at nobody because um I'm trying to say as you know we we woke up this morning you know so then we still have time to get it together you know I'll get it right you know it's all we can do right um and that's also too I want to thank you very much for coming to our fundraiser at the hotel of Vermont and it was so good to see you and travel great event my husband I had a great time it was wonderful music and art and I didn't win anything but that's okay um you know it was it was a lot of fun yes so you know um Jack Hanson jazz that's what we had there Jack Hanson jazz he's a city counselor yes yeah it's a small town we have him play for all life you know he'd be gentlemen to him he'd be having a great time um and we we appreciate it we got a lot of the business coming up I was talking about April 22nd with the um CVO the art um Fair Housing Arts show at um Contour Auditorium so I will invite you to those things to come and we need to tell your team to show up and it's a free event it's all free everything let me free maybe we'll talk I think um Jess is going to talk to you about having some resources there so we can we want the community not just uh come and enjoy this art blah blah blah but here's some resources you should know about as well so yeah Fair Housing is so important I love how Jess Hyman at CVOO has always promote so strongly that April is Fair Housing Month because Fair Housing is one of these issues that does affect all of us we all whether you're applying for a loan or you're trying to rent an apartment or something in between uh we don't know enough I don't think people don't know enough about what protections are in place you know they say oh they wouldn't take me because of my section eight voucher it's like that's not legal you know they they told me that you know families don't do well here that's not legal to say you know and um so it's it's important that we all learn more about Fair Housing I know that they're always teaching me new things well you know when you're home driving home you know you be thinking what should I say what did I what did I learn just know that you you gave all the answers hahaha I don't gave no answers you gave all the answers though sometimes I had to look at the shows myself and say what the hell did I say you know sometimes they're like God I said this event is like five o'clock and I said and um I said I don't know if it's five or six I said but whatever it is if it's five or six I'm gonna change it to the time I said that's a good thing about you know about being in charge of something you can you can make it work you know but what else you got to add before we close out right now uh the last thing I'll say is that VHFA is running um a big mortgage assistance program called the homeowner assistance fund and so there's fifty million dollars available for people who have overdue mortgages utilities property taxes or homeowner association fees so if you own your home in Vermont and you're behind on any of those bills you can go to VHFA.org and um apply for that money similarly another organization has a rental assistance program that's doing the same thing if you're a renter so these kind of programs that came about since COVID and are federally funded and supported by our congressional delegation are so important because there's money available to help people so I just always want to make sure that folks know that that assistance is helpful. Well that's great, that's a lot we should be on that like nothing yeah yeah this has been fun this is great though thank you so much for having me on Bruce no doubt about it you know we finally got it right well I got it right you got one thing right you got everything else right so I want to thank everybody for tuning in to Straight Talk Vermont Show and we'll see you next time


Statistics and Excel. Perfect positive correlation part number two. Get ready, taking a deep breath, holding it in for 10 seconds, looking forward to a smooth soothing. Excel. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay because we basically built this from a blank worksheet, but we started in a prior presentation. So if you're using a blank worksheet, you may want to begin back there. If you do have access to this workbook, three tabs down below example, practice blank example, in essence, answer key practice have having pre-formatted cells. So you can get to the heart of the practice problem. And the blank tab is where we started with a blank worksheet and are continuing at this point in time. Quick recap of what we have done thus far. We're thinking about correlations, different or two data sets in seeing if they have a mathematical relationship or correlation between them, meaning are they moving together in some


OK, can everybody hear me? Let me know. I'm back. OK, great. Welcome, everyone. Today's webinar is about how to trade in the side of institutional money. My favorite topic. And my name is Melissa Armo, and I own the Stock Swoosh. So that is my company. And today, we're going to talk about trading. If you have any questions, you can email me at Melissa at thestockswoosh.com or call me at 929-3200 Gap. And of course, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Skype. It was a good day today. Nice day today, OK? So how do you make money in the market? Those of you that are thinking about doing it or want to do it, you have to have a strategy that wins more than it loses, OK? So that is basically what? It's consistency, OK? So you could trade and anybody could have a win one day. But how do you do it day after day after day after day? Trade after trade after trade after trade, OK? It's about the high number of wins that you need if you want to do this for any length of time. Whether it's full time, part time, you really, really, really, really, really have to know what you're doing if you want to trade. And for me specifically, my method, my system, is about gaps. But it's about pinpointing the institutional buying and selling that happens in a gap. And that's what we're going to talk about today, OK? Any questions? Kathy's here. You need anything? And Kathy put my email in the room, please, for everybody, OK? So a lot of times people email me and they have questions about how much money do you need to trade, OK? First of all, I am not a broker. I have an educational business where I teach you my strategy. There are many different brokers out there. If you would like a referral, you can ask me. But all in all, there's so many different places that you can trade, many different places you could go, some with small amounts of money, some you need a lot of money to go to, some with margin and some without. It depends if you're a day trading or it depends if you're doing options, OK? So really, anyone can do this. When you start to trade, let's say you have a small amount of money. Let's say you have $2,000 and you want to open up an options account. You could do that at a retail broker. Now, are you going to make $200,000 with an account with $2,000 in 30 days? No, you're not. You're not going to. Now, one of the biggest trades and stocks and gaps of the year was Tesla. We're not going to talk about that today. When I have time, sometime I'm going to make a whole PowerPoint class just on Tesla. But all the trades I called in Tesla, but the very last one worked. If you had $2,000, you could have made a lot of money with Tesla. But that was an anomaly, OK? And you still wouldn't have made $200,000 with $2,000 in a month, even if you took all the trades which you couldn't have because you would have only had $2,000. So I think when people decide they want to trade, they have this image, this fantasy image in their mind that they need to shift into reality. When I say reality, reality doesn't have to be something that's bad or depressing or makes you sad or makes you not want to do it. Reality, in fact, can be very amazing once you get grounded. So when I say reality, I don't mean something that's depressing. I mean something that's grounded in real life, something that you can truly accomplished over time. Now, could you grow a $2,000 starter account into $200,000? Yes, but not in 30 days. And a lot of places out there are espousing different kinds of crazy things and methods to trade and things to do that really are not consistent, that don't work. And then people feel upset and angry and mad at the market or even upset with people that teach classes or have subscription services like I do with the Stockswush. I teach people how to do what I do. And the amount of money that each individual risks when they come to me should be based on their cash risk. And people need to grow their accounts if they don't have a lot of money. You don't need a lot of money to trade my system, but you do need some money. And your risk has to be in accordance with the amount of cash you have. Doesn't matter if a broker is giving you leverage. If they give you $101 to leverage and you only have $2,000, you still only have $2,000. So you can't risk $2,000 in one trade or you'll have no money in the account if that trade fails. And although I have a great system, which I do, it's a very high win ratio. Right now it's over 80, 85% for 2020 because I'm really on fire this year. But all in all, you have to account for the fact that of every 10 trades that I call two or three, depending on whatever month it is of the year, depending on how many trades we're getting, could fail. So that's still a very high win ratio. But once you get grounded in reality, your dreams can come true. And there's a difference between fantasy and dreams. So everyone's dream of becoming a successful trader is something that is realistic and can happen with the right foundation. And for me, the foundation is gaps. One of the calls today, which we're gonna talk about was a short in Twitter, was a great read, great read on that chart, especially after the earnings, which we didn't do it last week on the earnings. And I didn't like it. And today my confirmation of the conviction I had in it to the downside came true. But anyways, the system is what keeps me grounded. The system keeps me grounded. The analysis I do in the pre-market before we even do any positions at all is what keeps me grounded as a trader. And when you're trading, you do have to be grounded because you're making decisions about money. And sometimes you have to make fast decisions about money. So open your mind today to learn something. I recognize some of your faces here. Some of you are new and DD's a student, say DD here. So, hopefully you'll take away something here from today's lecture. I'm gonna talk for about 45 minutes an hour, wherever we go. And if you have questions, you can ask me and you're welcome to come this week. I'm going to be doing an open house. So you can email me if you want the information. I'm gonna do a free open house for the trading room, which will start tomorrow, Tuesday through Friday. So just so you know, I call the live day trades in the room, but I don't call the options trades. We might go over questions there, but the options trades are on a newsletter, okay? But you're welcome to come to the open house if you want to. So let's get started. If you continue doing the same action, say you've been trading the past, then you can only expect the same results. So this is important. And a lot of times people hit a wall. That wall is that they hit the wall and they're trying to do the same thing and it's not working and they don't understand why they're not getting anywhere. Well, obviously it's common sense, but sometimes when you're caught up in the moment of a personal problem or issue, whether it's specifically trading, we're talking about right now, it's hard to look at yourself and take a step back, but sometimes you need to do that. And I find the beginning of the year is a good time to do that. People say January New Year's resolutions, yes, that's true, but it's really still very, very, very, very early on in 2020. So you have plenty of time to change what you're doing or have a different resolution for this year. If you want different results in your trading and your life, then change is required. And not only that, it's really necessary. If you want to be more successful in the market and in life and learn a trading system that will bring about the financial results you've been looking for. And one of the key pieces to what I do, which we're gonna talk about today, which is institutional money, it all plays on the same factors, momentum, volume, all these things go together because institutional money, when I say that, I mean banks, hedge funds, big traders in the market, trained with big size, lots of money, and they move stocks and they move them in a big way, which is what, when I say momentum, I mean big moves. But it's not too late for this year to do something different, change what you're doing, and the sooner the better, because obviously it's early in the year. You could still have a huge year this year, huge, if you want to, if you wanna get on the right track. And I'm seeing some people come in, you missed the beginning, but just so you know, I'm taping this. Anyways, one of the cornerstones to everlasting trading success is consistency. It's just such a big key factor in what I do. And I find that many people are not consistent. When I talk to people over and over and over again, it's just something that's such a common thread in people's failure at trading. Without this, it is hard to stay in the market for any life of time. In order to be consistent, a person needs proper focus on what counts. If you've been dreaming of being successful in the market for years, but the success is eluded, you stop and consider why. It's time to elevate yourself and you're trading to a new level. This requires a deeper understanding and a better comprehension and an overall wider perspective of what makes individual success possible for a trader investor in the stock market. Making over 200,000 and that's just the number. I could have said 100,000. I could have said 200,000. I could have said a half a million dollars a year. One of the traders has made over 300,000 dollars and it's six weeks into the year. Not even four weeks or five weeks or whatever. So that is a number. That number that I'm saying has to do with your risk portrayed, okay? Your risk portrayed. So that number, when you get good, can be bigger if you're risking more. But you can't do that until you understand what to do, until you know what to do, until you know the system. You can't take $500 and make it 1,000 unless you know what to do. Because it's not just about the one trade. It's about, like I said, week after week and month after month, okay? Anyways, making over 200,000 dollars a year as a trader is not impossible. However, it can be challenging for many, many people to make this kind of money trading or any kind of money trading because they lack a good system, okay? So think about this. Think about what you're doing. If you're not seeing the success you want, then you need to change what you're doing. And I can't stress this enough. So many people are in ruts. And you can wait, you can reach out to me now, you can learn what I know this month, you can wait till the summer, you can wait till 2021. You know, I don't know how many years will continue to operate the Stockswush. But for now, I've been able to handle doing television and the business and trading and doing it all. I don't know how long that will last. I can't say for sure if I'll be here 10 years from now. But I definitely have something special. And this year more so than ever has my talents and skills really come to fruition for me and the people that are with me. So it's about following institutional money and becoming a successful trader and investor requires becoming a specialist. So that's what I don't wanna consider myself. I say an expert when I go on TV, but it's really, I'm good. I was talking to, I'll tell you a story. I went to Fashion Week, I've been going to different events. I went to Fashion Week on Saturday night. I went to show with a girl that I just got to be friends with, she's here in New York. She's a big influencer. She's like 1.4 million followers. And it was funny because we're talking to each other and I'm like, how do you make money? This influencer stuff, it's new to me. I'm learning more about it. And then she said, well, what do you do? So we didn't really know what each other did. And the best way for me, and again, she doesn't know anything about the stock market. So the best way that I found to describe it to her, she's a regular girl.  I said, I can predict where stock's gonna go before it goes there. I said, that's really what I do. And that was a very good way to explain what I do. Cause that's really what I do. And that's how you can make money. So that's what I teach in the class. That's what we do in the room in the morning. That's what I do with the options calls. So when I said this to her, I thought, gosh, you know, that really is what I do. And so when I meet people and I sometimes I think I get too technical because I'm talking to traders or prospective clients all the time or current clients. I said, I can tell where stocks gonna go before it goes there. And that's the gist of it. And how do I do it? She said, well, I look at a chart. And so that again, is where the analysis is required. So when you look at a chart, what is it? It's technical analysis. So it's advanced technical analysis in gaps. And what does it mean? It means reading price action. I can tell somebody's gonna go higher before it does like Amazon. And I can tell somebody's gonna go lower before it does like Twitter. So comprehending how to redefine and trade with this power will have a huge positive impact on your profitability as a trader. Elevate yourself, your trading and your profits to a higher level of consistency and success by learning how to read the footprints of institutions trading in the market. So this is a good way to think of it too. Again, in layman's terms, the footprints of institutional money. Well, how do you know that whoever's buying Twitter is a trader or just regular trainers? Or how do you know it's a big bank, a big, big position? Like, how do you know that? Well, this is what I would teach you, okay? So we're gonna look at Amazon here just because this was such a fantastic call. Amazon, for those of you that don't know had earnings last week. What day was that? Was it Wednesday night into Thursday? What is today? Or was it Monday? No, I think it was, no. What day was it? I don't even know. Whatever day this is, whatever day this was here. No, it was two weeks ago. Yeah. Here was the Amazon. Stock closed here, gapped up. I didn't call any trades in this at all here. It fell. So we didn't do a thing here in this Amazon. Now, I looked at it, the stock did gap up. The stock closed here at 1870, gapped up here to like 2050. It was a big gap up even for this stock. But then it fell. And then it fell again the next day. Then here on the fourth, this was Tuesday, I guess, last week, I called the calls in this and the stock moved higher. Had a big move on Friday and then it had an even bigger move here today. I called the 2040 calls on this day and it ran up, okay? So this is institutional buying. How do I know? Well, let's say from before the earnings the stock was at 1870 and today the high was around 2133. So that's a big move. Even from here, from the day that I called the trade here, 2050, it's gone almost 100 points or 2030 on that day. So institutional money is committed. It comes in, it scoops it up if it's long or it sells it off or shorts it and pushes it down if it's a short, okay? But it is a commitment because institutional money, and I'm gonna go back to this chart here. Down here is the volume. But anyways, you wouldn't have a bar that looks like this today at this price point, particularly, okay? Amazon is very expensive. Over $2,100 a share now, you would have to have institutional money that we'd be buying this. So you don't have a lot of regular traders buying this. Some, some of the did the calls I call but mostly you get a move like this from institutional money. So commitment has a plan of action. Now, we look at price, that's what I do. I look at the gap and I look at the price and I analyze it using a rating system. But people that are institutional traders or big, big, big traders, they look at many other factors. They will look at news. They will look at fundamentals. They will buy research reports that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Things that we don't have access to as individuals and they will make choices to buy Amazon based on many, many things that we don't know anything about. I don't need to know these things. All I need to know is that I see that Amazon gapped up and I see what it's doing and I see that the gap rates per my system for the 26 point system as a long and then I call the trade, okay? So if you learn how to read the footprints of where these big position players are gonna go before the momentum occurs, like obviously everyone saw Amazon breakout today, the solid breakout on Friday but we were in it a week ago, okay? So if you learn how to read the footprints of big position players before the momentum occurs, you can take the position in the right direction and then get out after the move happens for profit. So you could have got out of Amazon Friday or you could have held it into today. Your choice because we had such a good entry. So I pride myself on having really good entries and good picks.  But you have to understand how to train with the side of the power and you need to have to find it. And it's very important to find it because this power has the ability to pay you without working very hard. So this doesn't mean every trade that I call goes immediately. Some trades take a little bit of time. Sometimes in the morning we take a trade. It pitters off for a while and it takes about an hour. It takes a half an hour. Sometimes it go very quickly. Sometimes I call an option. Sometimes it doesn't go that day. Sometimes it's down. It takes two days, okay? So the market will do what it's gonna do but you have to be in the right stuff and you have to know how to read what the institutional money looks like. It's essential to become a successful trader. You can win big trading on the side of the power and this is where the groundedness and the reality that I was discussing earlier really, really is important. So a big flow of money going in a certain direction is what moves the market. It's what moves stocks. It creates momentum and sets the trend in charts. When you're looking for institutional money you're really reading the side of power in a stock.  You are not gonna move Amazon. If you're short Amazon, if you were short Amazon from the earnings you got creamed on Friday and killed today, okay? So the reality is it's easy to make money if we're in the right side and if you're on the wrong side there's no way you will make money, okay? An institutional money is in charge of the market and stocks at all times. Now here was a nice short from Friday carried through followed through today. This was T2. So again, what do I look at? I look at gaps. The stock closed here the night before our round 127 and change, boom. Gap down here around 116. This was earnings, open rally. We did a nice short in this Friday. It was a short, it was a gap down and then it was a short today, boom, fell, okay? So the stock ticker symbol for this one is T2. This was a short. You could have shorted it in the day trade run with me or you could have done a put. Any questions here so far? But what I do is I'm looking for institutional money. I'm looking for the power of money, okay? And that's what I teach people how to do. And that's how I call all of the trades that I call. I literally don't do anything other than this. So this one specific strategy I do, you can use it to do options. You can use it to day trade, but either way, every trade I call is based on the gap. It's based on the gap analysis of looking at institutional money, okay? So if you're here because you wanna learn something new, great, okay? You will not learn my system unless you take my class. My class is February 29th and March 1st. It's in three weeks. I teach the class usually once a month. In order to join the live trade run, you must do my class. Now the options newsletter, you do not have to do any classes. You can sign up for that and get the options trains, but you will do better on the newsletter if you've done the class as well. The woman that I was talking to you about who's made over 300 grants so far this year, she has done the class. She's done all my classes. She's on the newsletter and in the room, okay? She actually held Amazon through today, which was huge. So I mean, long story short, understanding how to do something and learning how to do it, it really helps you trade better. But you can sign up for the options newsletter that I offer without learning the system, okay? But it's just gaps. That's the number one thing I do. I don't do anything else. I don't buy pullbacks. I'm not doing any of this other crazy stuff that people are talking about, the Fibonacci's, this, that, and the other. I'm not buying shocks on the APR moving out, which I mean, there's so many different things. I don't do gap fills.  I don't look at any of that. I only do my own system. It's a system that I created. It's one of the reasons I have a high level of conviction in it. Number one, and number two, we've been doing it now for 12 years. 12 years may not seem like a long time, but actually 12 years doing the same thing is a long time. And most people can't say that. Most people that have been training in the market for 12 years, 10 years, 20 years have done many, many, many, many different kinds of things. Some guy, some guy emailed me the other day. He was trying to pitch me to do crypto. I said, no, I have no interest in it. No interest whatsoever at all. Why do I have to do anything else? If you want to make more money and you learn what I do, you just add more size. That's it, okay? So my system is called Golden Gap. So let's talk about the basics. What is a gap? A stock gap to the opening price today is a different than the closing price of yesterday's training. A gap is a break in price action from one day to the next. Simple, okay? So this team too had two gaps in it here recently. Stock closed here at four o'clock and 9.30 opened down at a different price. Stock closed here at four o'clock. On Friday, Monday open here at a different price. That's it, that's a gap. What's a gap up? This was a gap up over here. Stock closed here. This is last week, gap up, okay? So all a gap is, it means it closes at one price and opens at a different price. Closes at one price opens at a different price. So almost everything actually when you think about it, gaps daily because many, many, many things including the market do open at a different price than they closed. So then you say, well, how do you know which gaps are good or how do you know which gaps are predictable that you can predict the direction? That's why I created my system where I get up in the morning in the pre-market and I look at something like T2 or Amazon or whatever we're looking at and then I tried to determine based on my system is this gonna go sell off or it's going to rally, okay? And then I know before the open what I wanna do with it, shorter to go long it depending on whatever we're looking at. But golden gaps have huge opportunity because they spot the power, that's gonna come in and take hold of the stock and move it, okay? Move it with volume, have the big moves and that's how you make money. So how do I find golden gaps? I scan in the morning, I make a watch list, I go through all of my points on a worksheet checklist every morning, I never skip it. So I've been doing this since I created this system like I said, it's been over 10 years, I never skip it. I rate everything in the morning, I'm up early at least an hour before the open but usually I start rating about 7730 AM, okay? So I find the gaps and I usually always go to the shorts first because I prefer to short for the day trades. Then I rate them using the checklist and then it tells me what to look for in the rating system, okay? Then I told the points. So it's 26 points so I'm looking for 20 points or more to do it in the direction of the gap. So if I rate a gap and it rates 21 points and it's capping down like T2 that I know I'm gonna watch T2 to short. I still don't take the trades until after the open, okay? I'm not doing anything in the pre-market. Any questions here so far? So there is one thing, and only one thing that can move the direction of a stock. It is money and it's not a little bit of money. It's not a day trade room. It's a lot of money. It's what I call power money. Power money is in charge. Power money is in charge of this market. Power money is in charge of the stock's direction. I had another good read on the market too. I did a video late Friday night. I just put it up about an hour or two hours ago. I forgot to put it up. But I did it Friday night because I had a spot on I24 News. The market I knew, I knew it was higher. I knew it was higher last week and it was. That was a really good read. The power money that's in the market right now, I'm talking about the general market but as you can call it the spy, okay? It has just taken a hold of this market. If you're shorting this market, you are losing. There are no shorts to be in this market. I'm talking about the market indices. I'm talking about the spy. I'm talking about the QQQs. So trends are set at move with the power money people of which there is a lot of in the market, okay? So me, I look at gaps. That's how I've been reading the market as well. Gaps happen in the market on a regular basis. Every day, pretty much for the most part. Sometimes there's a day we don't have anything good and then we don't trade, but right now it's earnings season. There's a lot of gaps, okay? However, some gaps are better than others. Some gaps are nothing gaps and some gaps are very powerful displays of institutional money. The most important gaps in the market are gaps that signify a change in direction or a bigger move in the same direction. Either way, understanding which gaps are meaningful and which gaps are not meaningful in the market will help you to know what to do and when a change is occurring. And that is how you know when the power money will flow to pay you. So if you said, Melissa, I wanna come and do your class. What am I gonna learn? You're gonna learn the 26-point gap rating checklist. That checklist is gonna tell you which gap to play or which stop to play on that day if you can shorten or go long it. So you're going to learn how to, for example, rate T2 and know if T2, which is a gap down, is rateable, which it was, and if it was higher than 20 points, which it was, and if it was, which it was, then you could short it. You look for a setup to short it. And I teach the setups in the class as well. But I call the trades live in the room in the morning. The key, though, to big profits is power money. Because, again, normal people can take a couple hundred shares, a couple thousand shares. Normal people, normal traders, are not taking 50,000 shares.  You've gotta get 5,000 shares, get a dollar move. That you could have done today on the Twitter call that I called. But then you say, okay, well, how could I do that on something else? Well, you might not have been something if it didn't move a buck. You had to get the good entry. You had to get the direction right. You had to put the stop at the right place, okay? And also, I will say this, your risk needs to be the same on almost every trade you take. Same risk. You wanna risk 1,000, 1,000, 1,000. Then that's what you're doing, okay? Any questions here so far? Let's go over the Twitter. Twitter was a nice move. I knew Twitter was lower. So Twitter closed here and gap down, fell. Called to put in the Twitter today. People could be out of it. People could still be in it. It was profitable from the moment I called it and the day tree. So this fell. Didi, did you do the Twitter? I see you're in here. You were in the room this morning. Let me know if you did Twitter. Anyway, Twitter fell. Boom. Snugged as a bug in a rug down in here. And a very nice move for the stock. And a very good stop. Now, I squished this together. This is the one minute chart. Just to show you here, here's the open, open rally dropped. Okay? And then we shorted the Twitter, got the drop. And actually, again, you could have been out of this into lunch. You could have been out of this into two o'clock. I thought was a good exit. It had almost a buck. Went into the afternoon. A nice move and really never looked back from the price that we took it. So the entry in the Twitter was 36.52. Stop was 36.75. Show big size in this for the share quantity because again, I usually have my trades about 2,000, 2,500 risk. Been upping a little bit more to 2,500 this year. Anyways, stop 36.75. So if this had stopped out, would have been stopped. And again, in a stock like Twitter, you can take 10,000 shares. You could take more. Exit 35.75. I think the low of the day was 35.60 or something like that. It just kind of ran out of mojo late in the afternoon. It was a long trade, but it was a really nice trade. Profit 7,700. Okay? Now, when you're doing trades, you can get in and get out quickly in the morning. I'm gonna go back to this. You could have done it and just taken it out, boom, when it fell. You could have just taken it out and made 50 cents cut out at 36, or you can hold it down. Now, I don't move my stops, but you could have moved your stop down if you wanted to be tight with it since it took a while to go. But it never went anywhere near the original price of the entry. And here I'm gonna go back to the daily. Here was the Twitter, close near the lows. Okay? Any questions so far on the Twitter? Any questions from anyone? There was one more thing I was gonna say. I was gonna say something else about the Twitter. Anyways, if I think of it, I'll let you know. Think intellectually about what you're doing. Think, think, think, think, think. Okay? When you're getting into this and when you're doing this and when you wanna, when you want to take trades, you have to know what you wanna do. So like in my mind, I either like something or I don't like something. And I'm either gonna watch something or I'm not watching anything. So like I really think everything through when I'm trading and mostly make the decisions in the pre-market. So the Golden Gap 26 point rating system, pin points, the direction of money and power money by reading price action. Now, this is a good example here of selling. Again, the T2. Stack closed up here. Again, top to the tail from Friday from the high in here was 117.50 and change. And low today was 109. So this stock dropped huge in two days. So this is selling. That's what selling looks like. That's institutional selling. That's what we got the moves. And this is what buying looks like. This is Amazon. Beautiful move, brand new all-time highs, big fat bars, breaking out. This could even be higher. In fact, let me just look right now. Let's just see. Let's just see where this stock is. I'm gonna pull this up right now to see where this puppy is. Well, it's kind of just flat. Here, I'll just show you. I just wondered if this was up at all tonight. I mean, I would not be surprised. Again, I think this was a great exit today. I think it was a great exit Friday. But I wouldn't be shocked at all. 2135, 27 was a high today. I would be shocked if this goes to 2150 tomorrow. I just wouldn't be. Could happen in a gap up. It could just run up there. I don't know. Again, this was a nice call. And if we're still in this trade, then the possibility is you could give back some profits if it doesn't continue with third day. But this could really, this is really getting a big, huge move. So, and that is part of the lift that you've seen in the market as well. Any questions? Show the most valuable information for people to trade can be found in reading price action. Again, that's how I do what I do. It's understanding chart reading of gaps and how important the patterns of price are in the market. It's gonna help you become profitable. Reading power of money when it says that Bahup give you conviction to trade. Seeing when and where the power of money positions are getting in is like finding a gold mine. And that's really how I came up with the name of the golden gaps because it predicts the power before the power takes hold of it and moves it. Because again, you don't wanna chase something. I never do that. Seeing gaps clearly in how they're creating trends, changing trends and making momentum is a very powerful way to trade for you as an individual.  People say you can but you can't. As good as I am, I can't take $500, make a hundred grand in a month. And if you believe that stuff, you're living in la-la land, okay? And I know that everyone's impatient. I know everyone wants to make a lot of money right away. And a lot of times when people come to me, very honest with them, they've been losing for years, years. They've lost tons of money in the market and maybe paid for classes that didn't learn how to trade. So they try to make, they wanna make up all the money that they can if they've ever lost from the market or classes are trading all back as quickly as they can. You should not think like that. If you've lost money in the market, then you need to let it go. If you paid for classes that didn't get something from it, you need to let it go. Today is the first day of your trading career. When you come to me, if you do when you do the class with me and that's how you need to look at it, you can't go back.  You need to open up your perspective and say I'm gonna do this something new and I'm gonna change what I'm doing and today's the first day, okay? It's the best way to look at it. When you're chasing your tail, you're never gonna get ahead. So think about what I've said, but when I press the button, I have 100% conviction, all right? And I know what I'm looking for and again, if part of it is doing this for a long, long time, but I think the conviction that I have when I trade, it really helps me make money. The calls I made in Tesla, I did them without even barely thinking. I had such high conviction that I just knew. It's called a knowing. You can call it intuition, you can call it whatever you want. How are you gonna gain that intuition? Doing the same thing consistently over and over and over and over and over for days and weeks and months and years and years and years and years and years. And that's how you get good. It's like a golfer, like Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is a great golfer. I don't know how many hours a day practices. I don't know if he golfed seven days a week, but he very well might. So the more you do something, the better you get. And a good example of that really is sports because if you wanna be good in any sport, tennis, golf, anything, if you practice a lot, Olympics are the summer, you got it, you got it. In order to get to the Olympics, you gotta be really good. And even if you're really good, that may not be enough because a lot of other people are really good too. So think about it. You don't wanna go with the crowd of day traders. You wanna put yourself apart, separate from them because most day traders are losing. It's one of the reasons I have the trading room closed off. People very easily will go be negative. But when you're in your own world, you can control the things that you think and the choices that you make. And you don't allow negativity to come into your viewpoint. Now here was the T2. Actually, this was the T2 from, was this Friday's T2? Yeah, this was the Friday's T2. I did call it today, but stop close to your gap down. Open rally dropped, okay? Nice short here in the T2, got the drop. And again, the T2 kept going, kept going and going and going and going and going. So for me, my edge is finding the gap and my edge is also reading this chart. This is a one minute chart. So this is the close of Friday the night before at four o'clock. Here's 9.30, here's the open. And if you come to the open house this week, I would just watch because I call trades very fast on a one minute chart. That gives me an edge. And the reason I can do it is because I already know what I like from looking at it and deciding what stock I wanna watch in the pre-market before the market opens, okay? And you can look at stuff sometimes at night. But there are setups that happen all the time in golden gaps. All throughout the day, I prefer to do the ones though in the morning. So again, Amazon, here was the train. I called the Amazon 2040s on February 4th around 10 o'clock. I called them out long so they were a bit pricy for the end of this Friday because I knew it would break out. I didn't know for sure if it would happen by last week but I knew it was gonna happen soon, soon meaning within the time I made the call. They would have been a lot cheaper if I'd done them for the Friday. But anyways, this was still cheap when you look at where it went Friday and today. Cost was 27 bucks for one. So say you bought one and sold it for 60, you still would have made over 100% return investment. Three here, which is an advanced risk, you would have made 9900, risking 8100. This is taking it on this day here. Gonna go back the fourth. The day that I called it and getting out here and this went huge today. This just went to some ridiculous number today. I didn't even look at it but I know I'm like 100% that it went over 100. And to even see some of those things was just very interesting. The tests the calls, some of them were worth over 100. Some of them were worth over 300 at one point. This, I mean, I've just had some huge calls this year so to have an option trade end up going to be worth more than 100, more than 200 is phenomenal. So this was a nice, nice move in this stock. But I knew it was gonna do it. I knew it was gonna do it. And when you do an option, you gotta get the timing right. So I didn't know 100%, it would go by last Friday but I knew it was like, I felt like it's soon. Soon could be sometimes a couple of minutes, couple of hours, a couple of days. As soon as soon as soon when I know it. Any questions here so far? So earning power comes from what? It's you. People say, oh, I don't have a lot of money. How can I do it? Well, you know what? You can take a little bit of money and make it a lot if you know what to do. Not in some crazy fantasy world but you absolutely could take your money and double it in a fairly good period of time. That's what people have done this year. Okay, you could take a $5,000. Count and make it 10. You could take a $10,000, count and make it 20. So knowing what to do means you've got the power. You've got the earning power to make it. That is better than having a lot because if you have a lot and you risk it in the market and you don't know what to do, you're gonna lose the lot you have. If you have $200,000, you know what to do, you're gonna lose it all. I don't know when but you will if you don't know what to do.  So the knowledge and learning is key. I stress this so much with people but I know everybody just wants to take the trades and make money. You can sign up for the options newsletter if you want to do that. If you have no interest in learning then just sign up for the options newsletter. But learning is key and I do think it's important because I will not be doing this forever. Okay, so if I disappear then how are you gonna know what I know if I disappear to ever continue to trade? So that's why really understanding it is very important for you for the long haul. But if you want to consistently make a lot of money in the market, the only way that's gonna happen is if you're trading on the side of institutional money because you as one individual can't take 100,000 shares of a stock. But the profits come very quickly.  But you can do this from home if it's something you wanna do. And like I said, I teach a class. So the class is the end of the month. It's called the Golden Gap course. It teaches a 26 point system to find the best stock to trade each day. The course also teaches you how to enter and exit the stock on the day. The course teaches price analysis and technical analysis on an advanced level. Now, what if you're new? You don't have a clue. You're never traded before and you don't know anything at all. That's okay. I go over some basic things at the beginning and the morning and the first day of the class and you can always call me and ask me if you have questions. I will say that people that come to me even have been trading a long time. It's new to them too. What I do is new to them. It's new to them. So don't worry about it. You'll get over it. You'll learn. That's part of the process of trading, okay? You're learning new things. So in the class, I teach one solid strategy to trade gaps effectively by reading the side of power and charts. I teach how to read supporting resistance to take positions in the right direction. Like Amazon was not as short. Amazon was a good long. It teaches a more proficient and advanced way to read charts focusing on technical analysis and gaps and it teaches how to get conviction in your trading and the market as a source of wealth by trading with the side of power for consistent profit. Any questions here? Trading is about chunking it out. You chunk it, chunk it, chunk it. Take the trade, get out. Take Twitter, get out. Take Amazon, get out. Take T2, get out, okay? And you book it, book the money. Book it, book it, book it, okay? I'll call another trade. Sometimes you end up holding something huge like Amazon but if you got out like I said last week, that was fine. The Tesla ones, everybody made a lot of money just because. I didn't even, they kept going, which was insane. But your goal is to get the right pick if you come with me and the right entry, read the directional bias correct, get the good gap. And I teach targets in the class but sometimes things do surpass even what I expect them to do. And it's exciting to me. It's exciting to see moves like stocks in Amazon. It's exciting to finally see some follow through in some things in this market, okay? So empower yourself to trade. If you're interested, my class, like I said, is a full two-day course on how to strategically find, pick and play stocks that are professional bearish gaps. Class is online. You could be anywhere in the world and take it. The class is February 29th at March 1st, nine to five, Saturday and Sunday. The cost is 69.99 US dollars. If you want to sign up, you must email me for the forms at Melissa at thestockswish.com. Now, I'm doing an options newsletter special. If you just want to do the options, okay, until Valentine's Day, which is Friday, upper ends Friday at midnight, 49.99 for the letter to the end of the year and the gap options course, which is a half-day course. So you will not learn how I make the picks in this class just so you know. This is only a half-day course from 11 to two or three wherever we go to. This is Monday the 24th. So you get this class and the newsletter to the end of the year. This is a good deal. Normally the newsletter is 59.99 for the year and the class is 2,500, okay? If you want to sign up for this email me, any questions from anyone about anything so far that we went over today, any stocks, any picks, anything. Dee Dee, how are you doing? I asked you a question earlier. I didn't hear anything from you. Again, I recognize some familiar faces. I don't know. Some of you have been following me for a long time. Some of you have been following me as long as I've had the business. I don't know what you're waiting for. I'm almost getting Kathy to trade here for a husband wood letter. But I don't think he will. Any questions from anyone about anything? Listen, email me here if you think of anything. Kathy, if Dale can do it, you can do it. And if you're interested in the open house this week, email me too. It's really about believing in yourself. If you believe in yourself, I believe that you can do this. Of course, you have to listen to what I say as well. But I know not everybody comes out in the first class. They take it the first year that they trade. Do they make money? That's the name of the game. There's a lot of people that wanna do this. And you will have things that you go through in hardships, but like I said, you gotta keep moving forward and you can't look back. So my suggestion is if you have questions, call me, email me. It's been a great year to participate in my program, absolutely for sure. Success is within your grasp. And if you wanna try, like I said this week, or to come to the open house, email me at infothesnaxwush.com or Melissa at thestackswush.com. Did you have a dental appointment? Okay, did you do Amazon? I know did you do the Teslas? There were so many trades in Tesla. It's for me to do a PowerPoint on them is gonna take like an entire day or an entire weekend. I just haven't made the time. I really need to though, because it's such a great example talking about institutional money in a chart. It's just, it's a great example of so many different things that I teach, but there were just so many trades in it. So a lot to put on in a PowerPoint. Any questions from any of the new people? Any questions from any of the old people? I'm here with you now. We're done early. If you wanna go over anything. I see Didi's typing. So it's been a interesting start to the year. I will say that unexpected, unexpectedly, pleasantly very good. So I'm just sometimes you surprise yourself. I mean, I think that's, that's what it comes in. Be realistic and grounded and life will sometimes surpass your expectations. And I think that, you know, we've seen that this year. Email me if you have questions, okay? And thanks for having me, Kathy. Kathy's in charge tomorrow at the open house. Very good. All right, have a great night everyone. Email me if you're interested in the class or give me a call, okay? And again, here's a Valentine's Day special for the newsletter ends Friday. This is a great deal. And here's the class information. Thank you. Have a good night.


The study presents a method to track temporal variability in surface water extent using freely available high temporal and spatial resolution synthetic aperture radar, SAR, satellite data such as Sentinel-1, resulting in a dataset that can differentiate between permanent and recurring lakes as well as capture rivers with a width of over 30 m. The methodology is anticipated to be further enhanced and refined with imagery available for 2018 and beyond due to now operational Sentinel-1B satellite and future radiosat constellation mission, 2018. This article was authored by Evan Udylansi, Johan Kariyeva, Jerome Cranston, and others.