I hope she's in the room. I know our moderators are getting her checked in. She is the founder and owner of an international education company where she teaches how to successfully trade the stock market. The Stock Swish is the name of her company. And it's based on one strategy called Golden Gaps. She's got a method that she created that's unique to the Stock Swish called Golden Gaps, which pinpoints institutional money in the stock market. So we're excited to have Melissa here today. She's been with us in the past and we really enjoyed her presentation before she had a lot of great information to share. Today she's going to talk about making a living in just 30 minutes a day. Why the market open is the best time to trade. Her favorite index for gauging market direction and finding high probability gap trades on selective stocks. So we're very excited to have her here today. Do we have Melissa and then ready to go? Absolutely, I see her there. Good morning, Melissa. I think we just need to get her unmuted and here we go. Good morning, can you hear me? We hear you loud and clear, Melissa. Okay, thank you for creating that. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. I'm going to attempt to share my screen here. Let's see if this works. I have a chart up. Can you see it? Absolutely, looks beautiful. Okay, I'm not, welcome. Back and forth between my charts, my PowerPoint. So I just wanted to pull the chart up first since we're talked about the market, what indices do I like to look at first? I thought I'd talk about this and then I'll go over to my slides. For those of you that traded yesterday, there was a massive sell-off that happened when Trump tweeted yesterday in the market. It was late in the afternoon and I just wanted to look at this bar. This is a 245 bar here, 15 minute bar in the spy. The one that I like to watch is the spy. Why? Because you have more stocks in that bucket. The spy is the ETF for the S&P and you have the financials, which I think it's very important. You're not going to have a market making brand new Altam highs without the financials. So I'm actually for the short-term period here, thinking that the market is going to trade sideways or continue to sell off. And it's interesting because on Monday, I was on CBS and I said, we were rally Monday. We rally Monday, Trump got out of the hospital and I said, I think that this rally isn't going to go anywhere and then we sold off like a Banshee yesterday. So I don't think we're going to go anywhere today in a rally either because we're too far away from the highs to get up there before the election and there's not enough time, 27 days, 26 days left until the election period. And I think that the market is not going to make that move until after we find out who wins come November. So I like to watch the spy because you have more stocks in the bucket and you do in the queues and also the Dow, which only has 30 stocks and also you have the financials. And my read on the financials, let me just quickly look at JPM. JPM has earnings out on Tuesday morning, earnings season starts next week. You can see even here today how this is trading, this gap depth with the market too, rallying, couldn't go anywhere, starting to break down here. And if you look at the overall daily chart here of this, it just doesn't look that great. I mean, this is so far, so far from the highs that even if this ends up having a bullish move next week on Tuesday, it's not gonna get back up to the highs. So I watch the spy, that's my favorite industry to watch. That's how I read everything. How I read everything also is in the gap, which we'll talk about in the slides. Now let me just see if I can pull my slides up here. And then I don't know if there's questions as we go along, Raleigh, or forget how you do that here at the end. It's really depending on how you're most comfortable. I can feel the questions and feed them to you if you ask me or you can handle it at the end. It's whatever you're most comfortable with, Melissa. Yeah, if you wanna, if somebody has a question where we're going along, you can just interrupt me and I'll answer it. Anyways, today- That sounds good. Yeah, today I'm gonna talk about how you can earn a living trading from home. And I think this is important for 2020 why? Because a lot of people want to work from home right now. People are still out there scared about the virus. They're still scared of getting the virus until we have a vaccine, until we have some therapeutics that can cure most people. I think people would prefer to work from home. Some people are working from home and are scheduled to go back early 2021, but that may be pushed off as well. So if you can work from home and earn a good substantial income, I think that's the best case scenario right now. No matter what your age group and no matter what city you're in. Now, of course I'm in New York and New York has been devastated by COVID. So I was very thankful that I already was working home from home pre COVID and that I didn't have to go out during this time because it's just been a crazy, crazy year. But it has been a good year to trade the stock market because we've had a lot of volatility. Like yesterday, that kind of move is the kind of move that you wanna capture in what I do in gaps. And we did capture that move. Actually, we were in puts before that sell-off happened. And it happened so quick, so fast that if you weren't already short, you didn't capture the move for profit. So when I'm trading, I'm looking for momentum, which is a big move. Big moves can happen up, big moves can happen down. Today I'm gonna talk more about shorts and more about the short side because that's what many of the trades we've been doing here recently in the last few weeks. If you'd like to contact me after the webinar, you can email me at Melissa at thestockswitch.com and you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or Skype. So let's just get right down to the nuts and bolts of it. Lots and lots of people want to make money in the market, but a lot of people do not know how and they think that they can figure it out by watching free videos or even coming to a webinar like today. While I'm gonna talk to you here for about an hour today, I can tell you right now, you're not gonna learn my system in this lecture. This is a preview. This is a little bit, an eye-opening about what I do. And again, I'm gonna flip back and forth with a charge to show you as we go along here, just so you can get an idea. If you think what I do makes any sense because if you think it's something of interest and it makes sense and you can reach out to me and learn from me in a class, no one is gonna teach you how to trade in an hour. No one is gonna teach you how to trade in a free lecture. Anything that's worth good information is worth paying for. People pay me for my expertise. Like for example, being able to call the sell-off yesterday before Trump tweeted. In fact, one of my students emailed me, did I talk to Trump before I called the puts? No, I did not. I read what happened in the gap and that's what I do. What is a gap? A gap is a difference between the close and the open. Movement happens during those periods. Stocks and people move up and move down. They buy, they sell stocks in the post market and the pre-market. Tomorrow there are more unemployment claims numbers coming out. And to you the market will gap tomorrow. I don't know if it gaps up, I don't know if it gaps down but it will gap. So it's buying or selling that comes in in the after hours and that is very, very, very, very important time to be analyzing and looking at and that's what I do. So I prepare in the morning before I trade what I'm gonna trade way before the open. Many, many day traders don't decide what they're gonna do until 10 o'clock, 1030. They scan and look and see what direction the market's headed. Right now we're green today but I would not be going long anything. Even though the market's green today the market feels very heavy, very heavy to me today. So getting back to the slide here people can make money in the market but the thing is that people don't take it seriously enough with a level of commitment to really learn it and understand before the big money comes.  So for example, there were losers yesterday that were long in the market. The winners were me and my students that were short. We were down before we made the money but I had the call.  Nobody's making anything or creating anything. It almost seems like sometimes the money comes out of thin air when we make money in a trade because you really aren't making anything but the caveat is that in order to make money trading you must risk your own money in order to make it and because you work so hard for your money or whatever your job is or whatever savings you have to open your trading account you must take it very seriously and I don't care if you're risking $200 or $2,000 a trade.  You still have to take it seriously and you still have to be really really good at what you do which means what? You have to have more winners than losers. If you have too many losers then there's no point in doing this because the end game is to win. That does not mean that every trade that I personally take wins. Some trades that I take lose, okay? But more win than lose and that's where you need to be if you're gonna do it for a living, okay? And that being said as far as the time period whether you wanna trade options or whether you wanna do the fast day trades we're gonna talk about both today. That is up to you and your schedule as far as your time commitment because the market's open from 9.30 to 4. The US stock market that's all that I train so you can spend all day trading if you want or you could be in and out quick in the morning if you want to like we did Apple yesterday it was a fast trade but it had a larger move in the afternoon where you could have held it down a little bit longer if you wanted to stay with it. Anyways, getting back to what I was saying you have to be honest with yourself about what you're doing. Many times I talk to people over and over and over the years I've had the stock switch now for 10 years or so.  Once you get over the fact that every person when they start out loses at the beginning you'll be a lot better off. You're never, you can't chase the losses that you've had in the past from things that you've done you have to kinda take one step forward and say listen I'm moving up and I'm gonna start new today and I'm gonna have a new attitude about what I'm doing with this because the only way to be successful as a trader is to have a good attitude. You can't have a losing attitude and make money doing this. It's far too difficult over the long haul to think like that. Like again, this read that I've had of this market was a really, really professional read because the market rallied Monday. To see that sell-off would come in and we wouldn't follow through was a very professional read of the market. And that was what I would say would be a difficult day for people that were long because they'd say well wait a minute this doesn't make any sense. We should rally, trumpet out of the hospital. The fact is you have to read what the price is telling you. Sometimes it doesn't match up. Sometimes you have good news on the market falls. Sometimes you have bad news on the market rallies. It doesn't always match up one to one. You could have great earnings in a stock and then it could fall. JPM's out Tuesday morning I said. It's reporting Tuesday morning. The earnings could be fabulous and the stock would fall or vice versa. So you can't make decisions based on what you think is common sense whether it's good or bad to make decisions. Okay so you have to learn a strategy to be consistent and you have to let go of all the things that have happened to you in the past. Bad strategies, mistakes you made, losses that you have and move forward with a good attitude because there's so much money in the market even now this year 2020 with the invention of like Schwab has this thing now you can buy partial shares, this Robin Hood's out there. I mean there's so many people trading now. Lots of volume and people are trading with a little bit of money. People are trading with a lot of money. Either way, all the people that are in the market means opportunity for you if you know what to do and get the timing right and get the direction right. You will never make money in the market if you're not in the right direction. You've got to be in the right direction far more than you're in the wrong direction okay. And so with the invention of these types of trading accounts like Robin Hood like I said it's just brought tremendous volume into the market which is good because I hate to say it but it means there's more money out there for you to take when you're winning and there's gonna be more losers and that's the cold hard truth of it.  Anyways getting over what I was saying here about learning there are obstacles sometimes to learning how to do it for example sometimes people that have traded a long time they come to me they have to unlearn they have to unlearn certain habits or things that they did in the past that do not work because what I do is very unique sometimes when people come to me they're brand new they're better off because they don't have any bad habits now that being said people that are experienced know how to press the button they understand how quick the market can move so those things can be positive where you have an understanding of what to do construction wise and setting up an account and all of those things but either way everyone has different hurdles and obstacles that they have to get through some of that is learning and again it's skill it's a skill set when you're coming and you're learning from me what are you learning? You're learning the knowledge the information that I have that's inside of me in my brain you're learning the skills from me when you grasp the skills and the concepts of how to understand how to read a chart price action and again you can apply those skills for your own use for your own ability to be able to make money and profit in the market and again as I've been saying you've got to take it seriously and it's really not impossible I mean this has been a huge year here where there's people with me making more money than they've ever made before simply because again of the way that the market's been trading and the volatility that we've seen so you know learn from some of those experience you know today I'm talking and again you'd pay me for my expertise in a class if you came to me now let's talk about focus every day when I get up in the morning I have a process that I go through I only do gaps first I look at the pre-market in the market like I said I focus on the spy first then I look at any stocks that are gapping down then I go look at the bullish stocks stocks that are gapping up after I look at the bearish ones why? because I prefer to short over going long now that doesn't mean you can't make money going long and sometimes I do but the reason that I like prefer to short is because selling happens very very quickly why? selling happens when panic comes in in fact I'm going to go back to the chart really quickly here just to show you and pull up Boeing oh look at this here beautiful look at this JPM calling Boeing yesterday and this is before Trump tweeted actually no let me go to on one minute it was 11 o'clock this is Boeing this was yesterday 10-5 again this is before the market fell off this fell off so here's 11-12 11-13, 11-14, 11-15 11-16, 11-17 11-18, 11-19 so this is 7 minutes so in 7 minutes high the bar up here was 174 lower the bar here within 7 minutes 165-85 the stock dropped almost $10 in 7 minutes and that my friends is momentum, volume how you make money if you were short this which we were before it happened you would have made money so the beautiful thing here is was selling and why I like to short we short selling, selling action again you can do it as an equity train is because it happens quick it happens out of nowhere there are people along the stock that got stopped out there are people along the stock that saw the sell-off and then exited but exited late there are people on here that came up and tried to scoop it up here and to support and buy it and then it fell further and that was later in the afternoon after the market fell and after Trump tweeted but anyways this fell first this fell first and what I wanted to show you here with the idea of shorting is that I prefer to short because selling happens fast because it's panic no one's really panicking to buy this market you will have plenty of time to go along the spy to go along Apple to go along Google, Amazon even the things you love you have plenty of time to go along if you want if you're not in anything if you're flat you have plenty of time to go along you're not going to miss it but if you're already long and something drops and you're up and then you're down or you're up and then you're not up as much and then it's going down, down, down you see how where you panic happened this is really, really rare I'll just show you this really quickly this was, gosh it feels like forever ago but this was Tesla we did these two, we did calls in this because this was very expensive actually at the time we did it the stock was before the split this was a couple of different times in here we did it this was more like panic buying in here this was like the summer so you did have like which is so rare like this is the only stock right now at the top of my head this was panic buying where it was like oh my gosh I gotta get it I gotta get it hurry, hurry, hurry and again these numbers are wrong because the stock split here this is when it blooped up over a thousand or whatever anyways the point is that this was panic panic buying which is so rare you almost never ever see it but this is an example of a chart with panic buying but panic is great to train off of and you mostly get it, mostly get it to the downside alright let me go back over here now where I was alright so what do I focus on I focus on gaps okay I focus on only my system and I'm looking at my system as a way to predict the probability so I call it high probability and low probability I also don't need the market necessarily on my side to get the trade if I have the market on my side which yesterday in the shorts you did it helps it helps it go to a bigger target but I don't necessarily need it on my side hey Melissa I just want to jump in a quick question here because this came up as you were talking about panic buying and panic selling and the question was do you have a sense of how many people in the markets are retail traders versus institutional versus high frequency traders that may be contributing to that panic well I'll tell you right now my system and the criteria I look at in the morning is based on institutional buying and institutional selling one of the reasons why I have a short term bearish bias on this market not that the market is not in an uptrend the market is in an uptrend okay it is it's strong that's why we haven't tanked yet but I can see that and I see it in the gap so that's what that's the meat and potatoes of what I do again you're not going to learn that in this hour but yes I can see that one of the things though that I'll tell you is that gosh what was that one oh Tesla hold on was it Tesla no Facebook here this is right off the top of my head here just to show you another example how I can tell this was back back way back the summer this capped up this capped up Facebook and earnings it went boom boom boom retail traders were shorting this to fill the gap it's the wrong thing to do it doesn't consistently work to make money that is not what I do at all it's wrong retail traders were short this we were long we were long we were down down down down down we were in calls and then it went poof and it ran all the way up like a banshee and a fabulous long so this was institutional money buying the stock and retail traders were shorted but they couldn't move it it couldn't go anywhere it didn't go anywhere at all and it never filled the gap so just a quick example here in a chart yes I can tell that I can tell that by my gap rating here's just a quick example to show you in a chart by that but what you want to be whipped is the side of the institutional money you do not want to be with the side of retail traders it's not that retail traders don't have any power they don't have they don't have the same power as institutional money does and they never will no matter how many Robin Hood traders are in the market but they can do something that seems like a temporary shift in power why because the institutions aren't doing anything like say for example say say someday I start a hedge fund say I ran one right now I wouldn't be buying this market I already told you that so I wouldn't be buying here maybe I'm not selling maybe I'm not selling anything today maybe I'm not selling any more positions here I sold at the beginning of September maybe I'm not selling up but I'm also not buying so you're not going to get the pull through do you understand what I'm saying so there's just a quick quick explanation of that and there's another question before I go on to the chart again no that's good because once again you know people tend to think it's the retail traders that create the panic in the market where it's up or down and so the question was of all the participants what percentage really is retail traders versus high frequency traders that might be having algorithms that are firing off and things of that nature you have all of it you have all of it in the market but the people of the power are the same people that always have the power the people with the money that's banks that's big professional traders that's hedge funds and don't forget there's lots of different levels of hedge funds you can start a hedge fund I think with like $250,000 I mean you don't have to have a million to open up a fund or whatever the case may be there's many different levels of funds as well so I mean there's so many things that are going on the market at one point and that's what makes it tricky don't you understand this is why this is why you have to know what you're doing because you have to be able to hold it through like I was saying we were short stocks and had short positions that were down people had to hold them through but they were options when you do an option it's a fixed risk meaning you can't lose any more than you have a risk if you pay a dollar for the contract that's all you can lose so you put the position on and when I day trade I have a stop in so I have a stop in too I don't have an unlimited risk okay but everyone has to have a set amount of risk that they use with the trade but you've got to let the trade play out you can't take it kill it take it kill it go long go short the same thing the same day that's crazy and yet people do it people doing and they wonder why they get depressed and lose money and are down about it if you're acting like a crazy person then your results will reflect that and if you're acting like a loser your results will reflect that as well what do I mean by that I mean in your attitude about what you're doing feeling like everything is against you and everyone's against you in the market if it bothers you watching the news and what I'm going on to Twitter and all these things that can get in your head don't do it just don't do it focus on the chart again I saw what happened today live on my charts before I even had the news on I said oh something must have happened there and then I saw it later and I turned on the news to see what it was but you know you have to read the price action and focus on that what I do is advanced technical analysis it's reading chart chart action sometimes the things do line up sometimes they don't when they line up it's great but sometimes they don't so you always have to lean with the technicals which is reading the price reading who's buying reading who's selling and that big sell off that happened that did happen yesterday is because again you had retail traders that were long and they did get stopped out and then you also had other things triggered but that that again is something that I for saw so we didn't go long anything show you either wait wait for the setup you know or do nothing if you don't understand what to do and that's that's the best case scenario anyways how can you become successful day trading the number one key ingredient to becoming successful as a day trader is having a specific system which I do and a strategy which is gaps and that can offer you a consistent reliable way to profit okay training success and financial success in the market is by pure design you have to set your point say this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do it until I understand what I'm doing and once you understand it and once you have the skills then the money comes and sometimes the money can come very quickly I've had people take the class and make a lot of money right after the class and they didn't know what they were doing before it doesn't have to take forever but it does take a full understanding of what to do and for me personally I have found that the niche for me is really the gaps because that's how I've read the market very well many many people even people that I'm on on television with they look at different things they're looking at support they're looking at resistance they're looking at the moving averages they're looking at again the the fundamentals so they're looking at other things for me in the niche as the gap and one thing I'll say you know whether I've been doing webinars with Raleigh for a while now whether it's five years from now if I'm still even doing this five years from now or ten years from now or five years ago I'll always have a niche with this because people just don't get it when it comes to gaps they just don't understand them they think they're too complex they they they just can't grasp their head around it the idea of the gap fill is something that people can wrap their head around it doesn't work so and even if it sometimes works over the long haul it doesn't consistently work to make money which is you can't do it you can't do something that doesn't work all the time because or most of the time I should say still some trades are going to lose but for example buying support which people look at which you had going on in the last week you know and then it broke broke yesterday it doesn't work consistently because for every three trades you take that make money you'll have four that lose so then how are you ahead I mean how are you ahead again brokers aren't doing commissions right now in 2020 that's something that's changed but you still have other costs involved with trading your winners have to pull you ahead to make money not just cover the losses but whatever other costs that you'd have anyways for me it's the gaps that's what's unique that's what you niche and I am reading institutional money in the gap that for me is what I play off of it moves stocks and it moves gaps and even if you think it's not there it is. People are confused about reading gap direction I think it also is like I said it's something that is a skill-based thing and people just don't want to take the time to learn it it's much more easier to look at two crisscrossing moving averages like the eight and the twenty and say oh it's along let's go along here for people they can they can do that but I mean if that was that easy to trade then every single person would make money in the market and guess what then there wouldn't be a market the very essence and the setup a way of the market is that the people in charge win more than they don't just like the banking system we're talking about this other day because I noticed recently I'll just say this really quickly banks right now are really really pushing to they don't want they don't want deposits right now as much as before to pay for them meaning they'll take deposits but they don't want to pay high interest rates for them banks are right now skewed towards trying to get lower balances in paying higher interest rates and that to me is a precursor for the possibility of having negative interest rates which would be really bad for the economy also Fannie and Freddie and this hasn't come out yet starting December 1st are raising the interest rates and refinances if you want to refinance I write out and do it today because you're going to pay more starting December 1st and banks have already increased their rate people that control the market people that control the world are the banks and the people with money and until you wrap your head around that you're not going to do good with the system it doesn't mean that you can't be part of that tiny tiny little percentage of people are successful but you got to wrap your head around what it is okay and you have to learn to see what they're doing so you can trade with them it's so easy to make money if you're with those people because they control the market they control what's happening and again we're talking about this before because I was like I don't know if we ever should have bailed out the banks when we did that years and years ago because we really some banks didn't need it some banks did but some didn't and we made the ones that didn't need it even stronger even stronger okay so in this time in day and age when there's many people unemployed a lot of people in unemployment or people are just feeling uncertain about the future you have to take it upon yourself to be in charge of your own finances feeling like a victim to your circumstances or your trading and again feeling like a loser isn't going to get you anywhere you can you can get some sympathy from people you can talk to your trader friends oh we lost today this sucks they're against us that isn't going to do anything for you it's not going to get you ahead and if you don't have the right attitude the attitude like the wealthy people okay like the people that control the market that are in control that are making the choices and making decisions you can be in control in your little tiny world if you have a 25 thousand dollar account or five thousand dollar account or a hundred grand in an account you can be the ruler and the person in control of your world don't think that you can't you can you can choose to win or you can choose to lose it really really is up to you you can also choose not to trade okay which some days that is the case and you can choose to take off you can choose to take a day off and give yourself a vacation when you work for yourself too you can do what you want okay with with certain calculated risk now this was a play we did here I was just going to basically go over here this is a daily chart in you we did this this was earnings it was back at the end of September mew gap down now again what is it what is it got stop close to your gap down close to one price up here the night before boom in the morning down so the stock closed up here around 50 and change whatever the exact number was and then it opened in the morning here right around 49 we shorted this this was a short okay so this happened from here to here so the market closed at far this is 9 30 a.m. so from here to here went boom and we got the short in this actually it was 9 30 this isn't 9 3 it's 9 30 sorry anyways entry was 48 92 stock was 49 55 shares was 5000 risk was 31 50 exit was 48 10 I do call the trains live in the Remicolby entering the stop and the exit and the targets profit was 41 100 now this is an advanced risk but say for example if you took half this size still a fabulous trade you could have made over two grand and again how do you do it I rate the gap in the morning pre-market say I like me was a short I don't take it till it sets up I wait to the open went to the setup and if it sets up then I do it sometimes they don't set up then I don't do it but in this case here it did set up it did fall and actually it fell even further this was one where I was looking for 48 but it actually broke that and went all the way down almost to 47 you can see in that tail now I prefer to trade the morning and be done very very quickly most days like yesterday I got out of that Apple way before it went all the way down to 112 and change but but you can hold things longer and this was one two that that kept going on that particular day oh here's a bigger chart here's a bigger chart of it here yeah so here here here actually was the full on bar that was that was during the day in that day so here's where it closed here's where it open we shorted it in here we got out right around here snug was a bug and then it kept going yeah there it is so this is where it closed on that day yeah that was a good that was a good move September 30 so that is a gap this is a gap down okay what's a gap up this was a gap up stack close to your gap dump I don't remember the reason for this this was back mid September we did not do this here but I'm just showing a bullish gap stack close to here at 46 open in the morning up here over 48 rallying ran up here almost to 50 got over 49 so like here you could have gone long now again I did not do this I don't even know if it would have rated well but this is one that might have rated well and you could have certainly gone long it okay now let's talk about options here so I have an options newsletter how does that work I email the train out when I see it sometimes it's in the pre-market sometimes it's on the day so Wednesday September 23 this was the middle the afternoon I called spy puts I called the 327 spy puts so let's go to the daily chart here on the 23rd oh shoot I don't have it in here do I oh no here I do I do the 23rd here so this sold off so I called the 327s we were above it ran into the strike through it down down down boom and then actually felt the secondary day in here came down broke 320 so let me go back to this this was a good price for this okay this was 240 for one contract actually down here 240 for 10 would have been $2,400 this is an intermediate trader risk not advanced sold a 560 nice profit 3200 risk in 2400 return investment is 133 so that's within 24 hours boom boom then if you wished more an advanced trader 7200 profit 9600 again just more contracts you can't lose more than the number that you take of the cost of the contract you also do not need margin in order to have an options account now if you want to be in out in out in out in options like day trades excuse me you do need a margin account that's something you can ask the broker about but anyways we bought a put so when I do options I'm buying puts or I'm buying calls anyways that was a nice one in there so how do I make the decisions for those trades like the mu and the spine I have a rating system it's a checklist I go through it in the morning it's 26 points I don't need 26 points to do it I need 20 points or more to do it in the direction of the gap so if I rate it as a bullish gap and it rates 20 or more I'll go long if I rate it as a bearish gap and it rates 20 or more then I short it now if it's a pricey thing I may do an option instead of a day trade like something like the Tesla but I might in reference to something like the spy maybe I'll day trade it and I'll do an option we did Apple as a day trade yesterday and we did a put so sometimes I'll do both and when I do both in that same stock then it's really really good this was a... hey Melissa excuse me I just um we have several people that are chiming in saying that the display has only been showing the QQQ I just wanted to just double check which screen that you're sharing there oh shoot I didn't switch it over to the I don't know how to do that then I guess I can't go back and forth shoot uh yeah you should be able to switch between screens like I had the Q's up as my charts how do I switch it then I guess I can let's see if you do you have a separate monitor with another screen on it no I have right now I just put back my charts to see I have the Q's up but for the last 15 minutes I had my PowerPoint up because no one see it no one could see the PowerPoint what I mean what I'm looking at right now is I see a six I see a six panel grid um but some people are saying here the display has only been showing the QQQ's there's no PowerPoint showing here I just let me share the screen again I guess I can't go back and forth it's not gonna let me then because I thought I could do that there now you'll see the slide I'll go back and show the trades I just showed I wish I'd known that in the last oh no it's no problem because I was seeing something different there that's okay these things happen everybody we're cool we're flowing people you were in such a role and it was just hard to follow you there that's okay well let me go over let me just go back to I'll just explain again here this new train okay great yeah I won't be able to flip back and forth I thought I could automatically do it without resetting it maybe I have to go off on off on and I didn't I didn't know that I apologize yeah in other words if you I think if you go ahead and press the share screen button again when you've got it there then you can switch to the other screen and then you can go back and forth okay thanks for telling me um no no problem thank you people for bringing this to our attention because I was seeing the same thing anyway Melissa sorry to derail you there for a moment take a quick pause and keep going because this is great stuff well I think what I said made sense even without seeing anything but we were visualizing okay very good well let's visualize the gap here in the Mew so the Mew train what is a gap a gap is a difference of the close and the open the stop closed up here this day at four o'clock around $50 and change boom open in the morning here around 49 and fell we shorted it so anyways this was a day trade and again the date was 930 entry was 4892 stop was 4955 5000 shares with a risk of 3150 exit was 4810 so the profit was 4100 this was a trade that I called in the live trading room okay that you could have done with me now this continued so here is the bar where it went this was a gap down so I rate it using my 26 point rating system very early in the morning I could do it at 6 o'clock in the morning I just double check it and I say is this going to work or not and I say yes it rains over 20 points for my system then I wait for the setup and it worked and this continued down more than a dollar from where I exited it but I like to trade in the morning and be done you could have done puts in this too actually or you could have done it as a put or you could have done it as an equity trade like I just showed you there so this was a gap down this was a gap up I was talking about this too we didn't do this but this is a bullish gap stock closed here at 46 open in the morning here above 48 rally could have gone long this now not every gap down is a short and not every gap up is a long okay that is why the checklist the raining system tells me because again I'm looking for institutional money who is buying who is selling I want to be on the side of that power money when I'm trading that's how you get a move like this and it's a beautiful beautiful move anyways I was I was trying to show you the options trade here in the spy September 23rd in the afternoon around lunch I called the 327 puts that expired literally on that Friday this was Wednesday late I saw we were going to go and we did this was a great price for the spy puts but it was tight was only Wednesday to Friday to 40 for one okay so beginner risk you could have taken 10 contracts was 2400 sold at 560 made $3200 and advanced risk you could have bought 30 7200 risk sold for 9600 again the risk is fixed so meaning you can't lose any more than this and the trade was expired on the Friday but it went before then so here was this chart this is what I was showing you here was the big sell off then it got down the next day she could be here or you could have got out of in the morning the next day this was a put what is a put when I buy puts or by calls when I'm buying a put I'm predicting the stock is going to move lower when I'm buying a call I'm predicting that it's going to move higher okay so it's just a different way to do gaps I do do both now let's talk about Apple this is where we were same day I called Apple I call it in the morning before the spy this was the 110 puts gosh these were so cheap but again it was Wednesday to Friday so it's 23 expired on the Friday cost was $1 40 60 contracts $8400 risk sold for 375 beautiful tree profit 14100 168% return investment normally I'm looking for 50 to 100% on an option 100% is great if I can get more than 100% fabulous in this case here it just kept going I say let it play out if you did a intermediate risk 2100 you could have made 3525 so let's look at this chart here the 23rd Apple here was the day and then it went boom and gap down boom so again we did the 110 puts fell fell fell continued down the next day in the morning you could have got out or you could have got out here whichever profitable trade nice sell off we captured the move and again this was a gap down so the stock closed here gap down fell closed at one price at four open in the morning lower boom okay so that was an option trade but again based on the gap here's a bullish gap in Apple feels like a long time ago this was August August August 3rd stock closed here gap down could have bought it rallied okay I think this was earnings forget anyways then we did another one Amazon is one of those ones that I always do as an option because it's just too expensive and it's even expensive as options one contract cost $19 you think it's a lot but actually it can it can really go and sometimes this can go over up to 100 in the 200s I mean so you could pay $40 $50 for a contract here and still make money so we did the 3000 puts in Amazon 163% return on investment if you risk 7600 may 12 again same day you see how these are all the same point again sometimes I'll call trades in a bucket where on the same day boom boom boom boom boom well I'll see that we're it's all gonna go it's all gonna go in one direction the market is gonna drag it down or the market maybe will rally and then we'll do calls and we'll do longs anyways here is the sell off here boom dropped oh close to your gap down fell got down a little bit the next day fell through the stride we did it before hand boom nice one here again big fat bar again this is selling show you would do a putt like we did or you would short it okay and again this these are sent out an email format for the option straights the day trades I call live in the room the options trades are sent out to an email to you to do in live time which could happen pre-market which you don't do it till after the market opens or you could do them anytime during the day I may call them at any point during the day when something happens but the again the benefit of coming to me is you're going to get my expertise and not everyone learning the system but getting these types of trades to see them because timing is extremely important not just for day trades but timing is important for options too and I would say I would say it's equal I mean when you're in a day trade timing is important because you got to get it and has to go and move before four o'clock the market closes at four and timing for options is important why because there's time associated with every options contract it's got to move before that time is up and funnily enough sometimes the ones that I do sometimes they do go the last day that's not ideal I usually like them to go before the last day 24 to 48 hours but sometimes they do even go the very very last day so in reference to again my whole process is getting up in the morning raining the gap going through the checklist determining if it's on my watch list if I'm going to wait to the setup occurs okay I make good choices by following my system and not deviating from it if the gap doesn't rate good I don't do it if there isn't any good gaps I don't trade at all because you've got to pick the right pick you've got to pick somebody that's going to A move and B go in your direction in a way that's predictable 9 times out of 10 most stocks go with the market at any given day that's true even things that are an opposite trend so you've got to be able to design when you're making quality choices about trains is this going to go regardless of the market because sometimes the market's hard to read even though even I don't get it right all the time although I get it right a lot sometimes you just say I got to do this I want to make money I want to get out of it like we shorted Apple yesterday that went before the market before the market went before the market sold off Apple went yesterday and again to be honest with you I couldn't even tell you the reason I don't even know I just looked at the gap I rated the gap I went through my process I went through my checklist now here was the QQQs this was a day train this was on that same day when we fell off a planet on the 23rd this was a day train and this was one you could have held all day it was never going to back up it went to the dream target surpassed all targets again one that just when selling comes in and pushes something down when people sell sell sell again the concept of panic think of this think of the concept of panic in your head what's going on remember training people train with emotions I always find it interesting that people say well you have to be disciplined and you can't trade with any emotions that's ridiculous you're a human being you have emotions try as you may to say that you're going to trade without emotions you will fail at every turn you are human being and as a result you have emotions I use my emotions to benefit me to one make money in the market and two make choices I use the system but my emotions give me the conviction to hold something to take something or to get out of something as well if you're trying to live a life and trade and be profitable and pretend that you don't have any emotions as human being then you may as well just pack it in because you're not going to be able to do it and whenever people lecture and say that I think it's absolutely crazy I understand how the human body works and how the brain works you have emotions embrace it embrace it you will do a lot better doing that and if you lose and have a bad day get angry be upset that day and get up the next morning and have amnesia I mean there's days when I don't have good days and I'm frustrated and I'm mad and maybe the next day I take a day off but you got to get over it and you get back on the horse and you do what you know you need to do and then you move forward anyways this was a beautiful trade and I did hold this because I knew it was going to work anyways this close to here this gap down this fell off the planet again this was after the rally came in here bounce people bought it boom sold off 100% retracement here we did this as a day train 271.50 we shorted it stop was 272.55 this was a beautiful stop for this a little bit more than a buck for the for the market it was just a great stop exit was 263.80 profit $19,250 as a day trade now you would have needed margin to do this okay this is kind of pricy if you did a smaller size 250 250 shares the risk was $262 and you still could have made almost $2,000 why taking a train with the proper entering good stop and then obviously letting it play out to get the momentum of the move this was just a great day all around to be trading with me similar to yesterday because I just had it on point and very very early and also saw that it was going to play out now this is what we did yesterday and this was this continued like I said it ended up going I forget what the low of yesterday was but this was we got out of this before the Trump tweet and it went down broke 112.50 I don't even know what the low was but it was crazy crazy what this did we shorted Apple we shorted Apple 1.15.15 stop was 1.16.25 shares was 25.00 risk was 27.50 we didn't add so sometimes I'll do this it happened to be the same price total shares 5,000 exit 1.13.70 a beautiful move a beautiful move a buck is good 2 bucks is great but we didn't add in this so this was a heavy position for this stock $7,250 and again this was at one point during the day yesterday clipped it stuck it in here but this fell and fell very very hard yesterday I'd go back and go back to the charts but I don't want to do that right now I don't want to lose these slides but anyways Apple tanked later yesterday in the afternoon after all the hubbub then about the stimulus now if you wanted to take again small size you can trade my system with small size big size whatever size you can afford it depends on the size of your account and again I think you should take position sizes based on your familiarity with my system based on how long you've been trading with me based on your own again emotions are you a risk taker are you someone that is more conservative sometimes more conservative people like to do the options they just feel better about them sometimes the day trade set up kind of fast and they move kind of fast people people I think you know if you're a little conservative maybe like the option is better you know you don't have to put in a stop you can put the order out ahead of time you can just set it at the cost of $1 put an order out to sell you a 2 $1 all day and if it hits it hits if it doesn't it doesn't you know I mean you don't have to sit and babysit options now with day trades I would be babysitting them I'd be in the room in the morning between 9 30 and 10 10 30 and I would be watching watching what's going on anyways you could have made $725 in the Apple yesterday with only 250 shares nice trade that was a nice call anyways it's the checklist this is how I do it I'm reading the market and actually once I'm through all this powerpoint I'll take it off and on and we'll go to the charts and I'll answer any questions at the end Raleigh but I am looking at that large institutional money that's where I have the niche one it's gaps two I'm predicting where the gap is going to take it where is it going to take it is it going to push it down is it going to get bought it's called a professional gap the professional gaps that happen to play out one thing and one thing only large institutional money therefore you need a way that will help you pick the correct direction to play the gap how do you know which way to do it again because not every gap up it moves higher and not every gap down it moves lower so I have to have the confirmation for me the confirmation is the rating system and so that's what I'm looking at and again it's always in that pre-market period so my system if you want to come and learn from me tells you how, what how to do it you learn the rating system it's 20 points or more you learn those points in the class you learn the setups, how to figure out the targets you learn the entrance and then obviously the benefit is that I'm calling them live in the room as well so the sky is the limit for how much money you want to make trading you have to look at your own finances which you can afford to take per train I say give yourself at least two trains a day maybe three one is not enough sometimes we do something called a retake where I do it once if I take a stop I'll do it again, I'll hit it again so you've got to give yourself more than one trade a day but if you want to if your goal is to work for yourself and you want to make over 100 grand a year over 200 grand a year you have to risk at least I'd say 500 if you want to be around that 75k mark a year and I'd say 1000 to 1500 if you want to be at the 20 grand a month over 200 grand a year so that just kind of gives you an idea how much now if you can afford to risk $2500 a train obviously you're going to make much more but really then you'd have to be able to give yourself like five grand a day to play with then to take at least two trades a day because again I would not limit yourself to one trade a day and this is something that you can grow over time so we're getting into the end of the period of the year of 2020 there's still three more months left in the year I anticipate them to be good trading trading days I think October I called September to be bearish it was right October I'm not saying it's going to be bearish I'm saying October is going to be choppy and volatile what does that mean? it means it's going to be sideways or possibly sell off but we might look like we're moving higher and then not go anywhere what is volatility? volatility is you think something is going in one direction and then it goes in the complete opposite direction that's what volatility is and one of the benefits as well of doing options because an option is like a balloon where the volatility you could be down in something and then the balloon gets blown up and then you're up a lot or you take a trade and the balloon is immediately blown up and then you're up a lot so where the bias is looking in one direction then all of a sudden the air comes into the balloon which is the volatility in an option for example and then it goes and it's up a lot of money and sometimes that happens also in the gap where you could be in something and it goes in your favor overnight and those are great days those are fabulous days but I would just a couple tips here have a plan of action have a good system if you have a good mentor to follow someone like me I would do it take quality entries don't over train and don't be a piggy about targets we obviously everyone wants to have huge strains I was not a piggy in Apple yesterday that was a good decision I didn't know that Trump was going to tweet and it would go down to 112 something I could have been a piggy and made way more but I mean come on that was a great call so the idea of not being a pig about even good trades I think is important because don't forget October is going to be volatile you could be up a lot in something and then it can quickly reverse against you so you got to be aware that part of trading is what chunking it out you have to book money this isn't like this is a long term investing what we're doing here this is going into a trade making the money and booking it you make it make it book it no one here is Warren Buffett you can't take a position in something and hold it forever the idea is to actually make money and you can't forget that it's not just taking the trade it's exiting the trade it's like the Seinfeld episode you know how to take the reservation you don't know how to hold the reservation this is the part of the piece of the puzzle anyway it's White House with successful profits in the system money management you've got to use shops I teach that in the class you've got to take it seriously as a business and you have to have more winners than losers and if you do you can be successful I find a lot of people just have no system or they have a system that doesn't work and that's really what it comes down to if you have a good strategy and a good system if you have some money management or exits at times you overall should make money if you have a good system unless you just have the worst money management I've ever seen and risk your whole account in one trade which I know people can do crazy things like that if they have small accounts but no one should ever do that you have to look at it as something where every day you have a singular goal and then week per month per year and that's how I would do it now as far as options and day trades I look at one is return on investment and one is risk to reward I'm looking for one over for both excuse me but I try to I try to give options a chance to play out if I'm up against the time like it's the day before the expiration and I'm up 53% am I going to hold that into the last day to make 100% no I'm going to get out again it depends how quick something moves in the time since I take it and as far as day trades I'm trying to get out of all my trades early in the morning and just get out of quickly but for me the edge in the niche is in the 26 points I read the gap in the pre-market that's how I'm making the decisions that's how I'm making the prediction and then I wait to take the set up after it opens but for me it's the trade selection it's just you know looking at something I'm going to go here before it doesn't and that is a skill set it is something that people can learn I know that because I've taught people and they've learned it from me now while I'm better than anybody that I've ever taught because I created the system I've been doing this longer than anyone that is the benefit of getting my expertise daily to read the market and see things when they're difficult when they're hard when they're challenging when it's confusing I follow that checklist I don't skip the process even though I have it all in my head I know I see what the money is going I go through the checklist I don't skip it I don't trade on the fly you have to be disciplined in that sense to do it and I think if you can then you can be successful so number one again just preview here before we close it out you need a strategy for me it's gaps you have to have a specific reason for doing the train it's the checklist and I follow the rules if the gap doesn't rate 20 points then I don't do it at all you need an entry point any stop and then you need an exit even after you decide what you're picking so say you like it you're rating it you also need to know where to enter and where to exit and as I've discussed in reference to options that's critical with the timing but it still is what day trades to because again you don't have to get out before four you also should have goals be realistic about those goals you can pump them up later once you know what you're doing and making money most people are not used to making money five days a week so once you get in a groove doing that then you can increase your goals I would say be realistic and normal at the beginning and then you can like change it every earning season there's four quarterly earning seasons a year we're starting the first one next week it's a good time to come and trade with me because of that but for me it's the system sticking with one thing you can make money doing this your share size is a function of that I'm very deliberate in my choices I never sugarcoat it I never say well maybe no I say I have 100% conviction or I have no conviction market's either high or market's low or stock's going to sell off or it's going to rally I'm never on the fence and I don't flip it around so you know anyways as far as coming to me if you want to learn my system you can start it in a class if you want to join the options newsletter there's no prerequisites you can sign up for the year if you want to be in the trading room you have to do the class because the trade set up fast and you must know the system before you trade in the library with me and if anyone has any questions they can certainly reach out to me they can email me I trade only gaps that rate for my system I'm looking for good risk reward trains and again the money management you can ask me about after the class if you want to referral to broker you can ask me too but there's many many brokers out there I don't have an affiliation with anyone there's so many places to trade now you can open up a prop account with less than $2,500 you can open up an options account with $2,000 and I was talking about Robinhood there's so many places now don't limit yourself and say I can't do this because I don't have 100 grand I can't do this because I don't have 50 grand that's not true well you may wish that you had that kind of money $2,000 to make 14 grand I get it the fact is that take what you got and go from there and keep a positive attitude and keep moving forward again the situation the world is in to see with everybody it's very easy to become depressed don't go there you are in charge of what you're thinking in your head and again you are in charge of your emotions for me I allow the system to guide me in the right direction again it's the meat and potatoes of what I do it's the 26 points it's everything that I do that's the system it's only gaps and really quickly here I'm doing a false special which I had planned before this webinar this week so it's good timing it's only through Friday though today is Wednesday so you have to sign up for the class of October 24th and 25th by Friday October 9th if you want to it's a two day class 9 to 5 class tuition is $69.99 US dollar 7 grand free in the trading room and the options now newsletter for one year free with the class the normal class price is 7 grand okay if you want to sign up for the class you'd learn the class and get all my trades for one year this is a great deal I'm only running it though until Friday so really quickly here let me click on and click off and go to and there's my email if anyone wants to email me MelissatheStockSwitch.com I will go to my charts and then I will answer any questions here sure and Melissa while you're doing that I've been monitoring the questions that have been coming in and one of the ones that came up earlier is that do you have like a favorite like basket of stocks that you like to follow or using some kind of a scanning technique to spot gaps in the market for you to begin your process on your 26 point checklist I don't have a bucket of stocks that I look at no I mean if I see the market is going to go in a starting direction then I may trade a several market stocks with the market direction but I don't have a bucket I don't do the same things every day I look at different things you can get gaps from anywhere if you want to get a scanner get a scanner if you don't want to pay for a scanner you can get stuff free literally everywhere Yahoo Finance I mean there's so many places that you can find gap lists that you don't have to pay for a scanner for a while I did pay for a scanner and I felt it was a waste of money and overlap because you could even you could even turn on Fox Business and see what's gap in the morning on CNBC so I just find like it's overlapped pay for a scanner but if you want to you could okay another question that came in because when you were talking specifically that point about hey there's certain things that you need to be able to risk on a trade in other words you need to be able to be comfortable risking a thousand twenty five thousand dollars a year or risk two thousand and it prompted the question from many people about what account size would I have to have to be able to to to have that kind of a risk or to make that kind of money and I know you said hey you know take what you got but is there is there something there that you recommend as a minimum or is it does it really depend well just common sense if you open up a proprietary day trading account with five thousand dollars say for example they're going to give you ten to one buying power probably you're going to have fifty thousand in margin if you have a five thousand dollars cash in your account even if your margins fifty thousand you shouldn't be risking a thousand dollars a trade that's twenty percent of your cash account if you have a five thousand dollar account I wouldn't risk any more than five hundred dollars a trade and even that's a lot I start out with one fifty two hundred two fifty and if you're doing well you can build a five thousand dollar account up to ten and so on and so forth so at this point in time so for instance for people that tend to look at this they then their mind they're going like gosh I gotta have twenty five thousand dollars to be a pattern day trader or what not that doesn't apply here specifically and particularly for trading options options you don't have to have you don't have there's a gentleman that's been on my options newsletter he started out with a small account he's built it up he's got twenty grand in there he's close to the twenty five he's going to get there just doing the options trades and he started out with less than five thousand dollars and he's been with me for three months so it's possible the reality is that if you're doing options and you're not going to have a margin account if you don't have it set up that way you are limited to get in and out for example if I had called something and it and it moved on the day you can't get out of it that day you have to wait to the next day or you're cut off a certain number of trades you can take a day it's better to have a pattern day trading account today trade today trade for all of it options and day trades but if you're best doing the equity trades you can go to something called a proprietary day trading place you can google it you can look it up there's a million out there if you want to referral you can ask me they don't require any more than twenty five hundred and you could pattern day trade now again it's a different type of firm it's not the same as like an Ameritrade or a place like that where you need the twenty five thousand and even places like that they'll give you they will give you a warning like a flag if you say you do an option and you end up getting in and out of it and you've got say you got fifteen grand or something they'll flag you and give you like a warning so it's not like you couldn't like say if you had done Apple yesterday and you were up in it and you wanted to get out they wouldn't close you out if you did that you would get a little warning Mr. Smith you shouldn't have done that and like they usually give you two or three warnings before they would close you out they'd be able to try to get up to the twenty five thousand so you could be more nimble in and out but again if you're doing day trades with me and options with me even if you need two separate accounts so two separate places to do it you should be able to work it up to get to that point you know just by following the trades I'd say at least realistically between now and the end of the year because again it's earnings season next week we're gonna have tons of trades to do and if I call twenty trades in a day if I call twenty options which sometimes I do if I see everything's gonna go don't sweat a bullet do the ones you can do one, do two sure a couple other questions real quickly because we're coming up against time Melissa that you can work into the tail end here one was that there were several questions we're asking you know what kind of you know the lines that what kind of moving averages are using there and the other one was you know you talked about a strategy that you have what's the indicator that you use to try to measure gaps price candles if I look the candle sticks if I take everything off here it wouldn't matter let me just quickly see if I can take everything off here really quickly just to show you I'm gonna take off all my moving averages and show you I could trade without them I'm probably one of very few people that could do that I could tell you what's gonna happen here to Boeing look at that this is this is it this is called price people this is what it is I could trade the tape without even looking at this knowing the numbers now that's something that's very very very unusual I'm reading the selling I'm reading the buying don't live and die by those moving averages it will crush you and most people also have like seven thousand things on their charts Fibonacci's and everything else it's junk it gives me a headache when I see that this is much cleaner even here look at this but I've been trading for years with those lines on but I don't make decisions based off of those I look at the gap it's the price action in the gap you could tell when something gaps or not even if I didn't even see a chart lots of times if I'm off like when I used to go to Fox when we were we were in person which we're probably never gonna be again when I used to be in there I'd have on my phone I'd have to talk about something I didn't have a chart in front of me I could see where the market was I knew where the market was and I could tell then if we were gapping based on the price focus on the price get crap off your charts if you're not using them if you don't even know what it is and you know you can't even explain it to a bum in the strength and take it off because it's hurting you it's actually hurting you actually so so along those lines once again the question was what's the index that you use for gazing I think you said really start the day by looking at the spy right the spy yeah I like to look at the spy because that's kind of like a market indicator for you and then based on that you start your checklist process if I understand that and look here we're not going to one or two things today hold not go anywhere not go over the high from yesterday or drop or hold and wait till the data comes out tomorrow morning because don't forget that unemployment claims are coming out tomorrow morning a stimulus hasn't been made if you get up in the morning in the next 24 hours and they have not if Nancy Pelosi and Trump haven't come to come to a Jesus moment then the numbers are bad tomorrow I would not be surprised if we sold off tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised at all sure so absolute last question for me is what indicator do you use to determine what Trump is going to tweet next I I tell you I like honest to God like even I when I saw that sell off yesterday I was like holy cow I mean sometimes I surprised myself but again I've been doing this a long time see that's the other thing I'll say this really quickly everybody go because I gotta go but the thing is when you jump around and do too many things you never get good at anything I'm so good at what I do that sometimes I'm just intuitively good I'm just intuitively can tell you like I just told you something right there what I just said two minutes ago about tomorrow think about that remember that and I'm it's just it's kind of it's just when you get to that point when you know something so well it is intuitive and that's where I am because I've done nothing but this now for 12 and a half years do you understand that's the difference absolutely well Melissa once again thank you so much for your time today I know that you're extremely busy and we value you your time in your presentation and folks just another reason why we were delighted to have Melissa with us here today for our women in wealth she's just one of 15 examples of women that are successful in this business and we're going to share with you over the course of these two days of the things that they do so once again thank you so much Melissa for your time today have a great day to create your trading day and I am going to pay attention to what happens tomorrow thanks for having me all right


We really view the products that we make as the things that you like kind of intimately interact with every day. So whether that's like the products you use in the bathroom or the fragrance that you spray on yourself or the candle that you light next to your bed or the underwear that you slip on, you know, every day, a lot of those moments can be throwaway moments, you know, especially the ones in the bathroom. And I think that we view all of those kind of moments before you put on like your clothes for the day. Or as like, I like to call it your drag for the day, you know, if whether that be like your yoga drag or your business founder drag or whatever it is that those all the moments before that, before you get dressed to like do the roles out in the world that all of those little touch points along the day should be really identity affirming, you know, and so I always joke kind of like no one's as feminine as the body wash and no one's as masculine as old spice, you know, like, like, like a lot of those like the marketing around a lot of the products we use every day are kind of like be more beautiful or be more feminine or be more masculine, you know, and identity is really complex and multifaceted, sometimes contradictory. And I think we view a much more kind of like holistic view of identity and want to make sure that the products, the sense we make are as complex as the identities of, you know, our customers and who we are and the way that like the people we know identify. So we like to use a word at Boy Smiles called gender full rather than genderless, where everybody's kind of like gender and identity is more than one thing. So it's really about like walking away from binary ideas of identity and rather be genderless, which is like neither male or female or straight or gay or anything or fluid. It's nothing, you know, we really like to view gender full as like we're all kind of like a bountiful source of like an identity spectrum and that the products that you use should bring fullness to your identity versus kind of like making your identity neutral. It's something we believe in like quite passionately. I also use this metaphor. It's like one day when we when we make toothpaste, you know, I want to make a toothpaste.  So we really like to break the mold when it comes to the products we make in the scent profiles that we make for our candles and make sure that, you know, it represents the beautiful complexity of the people who buy it.


Hello Spectrum community. I am Ray Saragosa and it is such an honor to be playing for you today I wish we could all be in person together and I could see all of your beautiful faces but this this will have to do and I'm here broadcasting from Long Beach, California and It's been it's been a wild few days. It's been a wild few months. It's been a wild year and I've been doing a lot of reflection and You know thinking about how There is so much to fight for there is so much to use our art our music Whatever our motive of changemaking is right now And I've been thinking about how I can be the best ally I can how I can be the best activist I can how I can be the best musician and This first song I'm gonna play for you. It's called American Dream and It truly is about how the way we walk and the country that we walk upon Has to be rooted in love and that discrimination and hatred and violence and Brutality is not something that we can ever stand for. It is something that we should always be marching in the streets against And so this is American Dream I've been thinking about the wars And to be honest I can't take it anymore. I hear you every day The awful words you say Hate can't be the face of the American Dream I've been thinking about my life And how one day I want to be a mother and a wife I've been scared of that thought too In a world of struggle what are we gonna do? I hear you every day Saying it's gonna be okay But hate can't be the face of the American Dream And I've got a lot but I've got to Be that change is a choice and it can start with me Cuz I've been thinking about our mother How they took her away from her people brother sister and culture.  I can start with me And change is a choice. I can start with me And change is a choice and I can start with That was American Dream. Thank you for listening everyone Make sure this is all working okay awesome And um, yeah, you know this Quarantine and pandemic Has been a really interesting time for me personally as a musician You know, I spent two years touring on the road pretty much straight through and um And now I you know, it's very hard to tell when we will be back on the road and It's been it's been an emotional It's been a very emotional thing to confront, you know as a musician like we're always moving forwards we're always going forwards forwards forwards and having to reflect Has been a great challenge for me having to stay here and write songs about The world around me without really getting to To really be stepping inside of it, you know to really be looking at it from a distance from the inside of my home and you know, it's been a pretty crazy time and I think it's been an actually a very big time of growth for me personally and What breaks my heart is that this Disease this virus has been Disproportionately affecting marginalized communities specifically the black community and the indigenous communities As well as other marginalized communities And that's not something that is often talked about and There's so much anger right now and there are so many people who are hurting so bad and um You know, it just Makes me want to fight even harder and to Really hope that we can get the leadership that we deserve in this country the leadership that will really guide us towards harmony and equality And so I'm going to play this song. It's called fight like a girl and I wrote it actually upon meeting This very Wonderful woman. Her name is Deb Haaland and she's one of the two first Native American women in Congress and You know, there's so many ways to make change and One of those ways is absolutely being a policymaker and so Uh, Deb Haaland This is a a song that was very much inspired by her and all the women The women of color Who are fighting every day to make change Make sure this is tuned up Easy Send me Easy So I'm going to play one more song for all of you Thank you so much for being here It means so much to me and I very much hope to meet all of you in person someday And uh, be sure to connect with me online Um as the only way we can now And uh, I'd love to just meet every single one of you I'd love to virtually shake your hand and hear about Everything that you're doing and how I can help And so I'm going to play one more song.  It is not enough to fight for the things that affect you directly We have to be intersectional as change makers as activists as human beings And so I'm doing everything I can to be the best ally I can be and um And like I said Always let me know Send me a message. I would love to hear what you're doing and how I can be an ally to you and your efforts and uh, so this song is called fight for you and uh It's also very much inspired by my parents, you know, being Native American Mexican And my mom being a Japanese immigrant, you know, they came together and that's so You know, so beautiful to me how they In their own communities They came together and have become one and fight for each other every day And so this is fight for you. Thank you so much everyone. This has been such a joy Uh, such a privilege and um, thank you to Spectrum and everyone for having me and this is fight for you Save the mother How can you take what you want and say that we are free If you put oil in the water, we won't sit quietly and we were singing stand up stand up for The CS through if you fight for me, I'll fight for you save the oceans and the trees Save the people who are How can you do what you want and say you come in peace? If you don't open your eyes How can you see And we would cheer in stand up and don't look down when we march downtown for some truth Because you can't come play if you don't find your way to stand up to Thank you so much everyone. I am so grateful so grateful to have been able to play music for you today I I very much miss being on the road and playing live. So this is so wonderful And like I said, please message me. I'd love to hear from all of you and um become friends and uh community members for life Thanks everyone


As Kentucky gears up for the primary elections, some may be wondering how they can make their vote count before hitting the polls this May 17th. Tuesday, Mountaintop spoke with Secretary of State Michael Adams about what you should know before voting this year. Well, there are four convenient ways to vote now in Kentucky that wasn't always true. We've tried to expand access to the ballot in my term of office while also improving the security of the process. There are four ways to vote. First way is to vote by absentee ballot. I just want to reassure people who, based on their age or their health, have concerns about voting in person, they qualify to vote by absentee ballot. Certainly, we've seen less of that with COVID finally going away. The deadline to request an absentee ballot has passed. We're so close down to the election. But if you did request an absentee ballot, get that back to us as soon as you can. The deadline for us to have those in our hand is 6 p.m. on Election Day, May 17th. That's a week from today while we're taping this. We have to have it. Otherwise, we can't count it. We've got to count your votes along with everybody else's. You can mail that ballot back to us as long as we have it back in time. We can count it or you can bring it to the drop box. Maybe it's a little better knowing that we've got it. It's in our custody. Again, either way, we've got to have it in hand by May 17th at 6 p.m. We are Pikeville Medical Center, and we are an amazing place to work, healthcare heroes of all types work here, all who deserve great rewards. So while our heroes are working hard to take care of our patients and visitors, we are taking care of them with top-tier benefits, higher pay rates, and great sign-on bonuses. So join our team today. So what are you waiting for? Apply today! Incredible opportunities await at PMCjobs.org. Secondly, for those choosing to vote in person and are out of their county, excused absentee voters will have until Wednesday, May 11th to vote. The third method, which is new for Kentucky, early in-person voters will have from May 12th through the 14th to vote. This is new. This is something that we've brought, Kentucky. Three days of early voting, May 12th through 14th, that's Thursday through Saturday. The polls will be open eight hours a day by law as we've got it passed, especially I think that Saturday is really helpful for working people that want to go cast a ballot. Those locations certainly will vary county by county. We encourage people to contact your county clerk or visit our website, elect.ky.gov. We've got a list of all the voting locations in the state. And then of course you can vote on election day if you choose. Most of our counties have their precincts back open. Some are doing a modified version with some vote centers and some precincts or all vote centers. Every county is different. It's a local decision. If you want to vote, again, our website will tell you elect.ky.gov. Voting for the primary election is May 17th. For a list of polling locations, you can visit elect.ky.gov. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joel Korgel.


I think this is the most crucial moment or one of the most crucial moments in crypto digital assets. And it really does come down to controlling the narrative. And what I'm talking about is there was a press conference. This was a couple of days ago. This is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And he talked about CBDC is just how dangerous they are. And he just kind of catches up in a very simplified way. This is like a huge relief just to hear somebody in power, talk about CBDC is in the danger. Because when we talk about and we talk to our families and things like that, they're like, yeah, yeah, Bitcoin's gonna be great and digital assets, sure. Right. And CBDC is, yeah, it's gonna take over the world. But when you have somebody from the governor of Florida in the United States are talking about look, like, look, we need to really control this because if we give them more power, you don't know what's gonna happen.