What is going on everybody? Astos here. Welcome back to another video. So in this video, we're going to be doing an overall market update looking at the Dow Jones, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq. And we're also going to be talking about one trade that I made today on the 9th of January in 2019. But before we do talk about that, for all you new viewers to this channel, my name is Stos. And I make videos dealing with swing trading, day trading, long-term investing, and my personal philosophies and strategies when it comes down to investing and trading in the stock market. So for those of you guys who want to learn more about that, feel free to drop a like, leave a comment, and subscribe. And follow me on Instagram, as well as on Twitter, and join our Discord group chat, as well as our Facebook group. All of those are linked down below in the description box. So right now, guys, at the time that I'm recording this video, it's about 4.02 PM Eastern Standard Time, and the market literally closed about two minutes ago. And we had yet again, another green day today in the stock market, guys. We can see the Nasdaq composite closed the day up around 60 points, up about 0.9%. The Dow Jones closed the day up about 91 points, up around 0.4%. And the S&P 500 today closed the day up around 0.4%, up around $10.54 on the close. So today wasn't the most spectacular green day out there, guys, compared to some that we've been having over the past couple of days, which I do like in terms of the market kind of slowing down. But it was a green day nonetheless. And let's just talk about what these charts are telling us. We're going to identify some supports. We're going to identify some resistances and get an overall understanding of where this market is pushing over these next couple of days. So starting off here with the Dow Jones, guys, we can clearly identify a resistance here at around $24,200. And if you guys watch my videos every single day, I go over the markets every single day so we can get a better understanding of the trend so we can then therefore transfer the information that we get from the trend into what stocks and ETFs we're going to be trading for that day, for the next day, for the rest of the week. It's just a way to gauge what we're going to be trading.  So we can notice that the Dow Jones right now is nearly at $24,000, and we're nearing that resistance at around $24,200 to $24,100. So we've been talking about how we've been having about, this is the 10th green day in a row, I believe, the 10th day that we've been pushing up in price in a row. Obviously, we did have a sell-off here. So technically, it's not the 10th green day, but it's the 10th day that we've been recovering from this bottoming out point at around $21,700 in the Dow Jones. And this leaves me to believe that we're going to be having a pullback in one of these days. I've been talking about this over these past couple of videos that I do expect a pullback in the markets coming very, very soon because we've noticed over the past couple of weeks, guys, pretty much since the beginning of this trade-off in October, every time that we've had some green days in a row, we've followed that by even more selling. We've had some green days here. We sold off to an even lower low from the previous low, had some more green days in this point in time and sold off very heavily in the month of December. We've found that bottoming out point. We're up around nearly 2,300 points from this bottoming out point in the Dow Jones. The RSI is getting to the overbought side, overbought territory right here. Guys, I think we're going to be experiencing a trade-off, a sell-off in these next coming days, especially since we're under that resistance. We're in the 10th day now of recovery. And once this good news fizzles off, I know there's a bunch of news right now with Trump and China coming to a trade deal. I personally don't buy it. I still think we are far away from a trade deal whether it be a couple of months away, a year away. I don't think it's going to happen in these next couple of weeks. I just don't really buy it. I think Trump is tweeting out that trade progress is going well, simply to just put some optimism into the minds of investors and thus push up the market. We've been noticing Trump has been saying this in the media. He sent a tweet out yesterday. The market did pretty well yesterday. And that led into today. I believe the tweet yesterday and all the good news that we've been getting from the Fed has really just been clouding us with short-term optimism, which is why I think guys, especially since, like I said, we're overbought right now. We're nearing this resistance. I think that markets are going to sell off in the next couple of days. And I think it's going to happen pretty hard, like this type of sell-off that we saw a couple of days back in terms of the Dow. I think this type of sell-off is in store where we'll lose about 500, 600, 700 points. It's just a matter of when it's going to happen. So in terms of this closer term, chart guys here, on the 20-day, we are still holding that higher, high, higher low pattern, with the low here being at around 22,600, previous low obviously at around 21,700. So if we do experience a sell-off, I think if the Dow is going to hold the uptrend, we'll be able to pull back to at least 23,500. And obviously if we break that, it's going to be a break of pattern to the downside. And that's where more selling, in my opinion, is going to start kicking in. But the fact today, guys, that we didn't have an explosive green day, right? That's a very good sign that the markets are slowly starting to slow down right now. And that's really what the trend is telling me. Because if we can see on an even closer base chart here, we can see this trend line that I just drew for you guys. And we can see, actually, let's go to the one day, one minute, you'll see it even better here. So based off of today's trading day and yesterday's trading day, we technically broke the trend of making higher highs, higher lows on this trend line that I have drawn out from these past two trading days, right? That was a very strong support. We can see it here, guys, even in this sell-off that we had today, we still held that trend here. We popped up, made another higher high here from the previous high. It was very briefly higher. It wasn't too much higher, but technically, it's still a higher high. And we held it here, guys, again on this sell-off. But then we had struggle breaking out of this intraday resistance. And then we ended up selling off even more, breaking that trend. So it's very important to just take a look at all of the different time frames to spot short-term trends like this, and then to spot some longer-term trends on the 180 chart and all these other ones that we talk about, right? The 20-day chart, the 30-day chart, right? These are all very important. And just judging off the 30-day chart, guys, we're under the 180 SMA resistance as well. So in my opinion, guys, just judging briefly solely off of these technicals, a pullback is coming in the Dow Jones very, very soon in my opinion from what I'm getting on these technicals. And remember, guys, it's always important for you to do your own research. Do not base your trades off of my analysis. Please don't do this because that's not how you're going to learn at the end of the day, guys. You have to put in the work for yourself. Understand the markets for yourself. So then you can pick stocks and ETFs for yourself so you don't have to rely on anybody else, right? That's the whole entire idea of this channel and why I'm uploading to you guys every single day so I can just hammer this into your heads. It's very, very important. So let's take a look at the S&P 500 very quickly. It's in a similar situation. We broke that resistance of the 50 SMA on the 180 chart. I believe that was yesterday or the day before. And if we take a look at some closer-term charts here, this one is still holding that uptrending pattern on the 20-day chart as well, making higher highs, higher lows. That's still intact. But let's say we do break, let me just erase this one very quickly, remove drawing. Let's say we, for example, let's say we break right around here, which is the next support. If we do end up pulling back in the S&P, that's going to be a reversal pattern to the downside. And then I will expect more selling to come if we break this area. And especially guys, if we break this previous support down here at around $2,450. And if we're judging on an even closer-based chart here, this one also broke that intraday or, well, the two previous trading days trend line that I just drew out for you guys of the S&P 500 here. We can see this trend line was a very solid support, right? Very, very solid support. Up until around 2.30 p.m. today, Eastern Standard Time with about an hour and a half left in the market. This is where we found a strong resistance at around $25.90, $2,600 for the S&P 500. Then we ended up selling off even more. And we broke that trend here. So again, just like the Dow guys, look at a lot of different time frames when you're doing your analysis in terms of all these indices, and especially on individual stocks and ETFs. So let's take a look at the NASDAQ composite very quickly. We broke that resistance of the 180 S&P that we were talking about in yesterday's video on this 180 day four-hour chart. We broke it today, guys, with a very strong day. And out of the three major indices, this one did the best today. And we can see it's still climbing up after market hours, because this one right here, this is a future, guys. So this one's open after market hours. But the Dow Jones here, this is not a future, guys. This is the actual index. And this one obviously stops moving at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and wherever the market or whatever time the market closes in your specific time zone. But there's obviously Dow Jones futures as well, but I don't have them right here on my watch list. So in terms of the NASDAQ futures here, if we take a look at some closer terms charts, just like the S&P guys, just like the NASDAQ, we're still holding that higher high, higher low pattern. And let's say we do end up pulling back. If we break this trend line here and the 180 S&P here, that's going to be a break of pattern to the downside. And especially if we break the 61.50 support here, that's going to be an even bigger break of trend, meaning more selling to come, in my opinion, based off of these technical charts here. So that is what the overall market is looking, guys. We had a little bit of a slowdown day today in the NASDAQ, in the Dow, in the S&P, but nonetheless, it was still a green day, guys. And that marks the 10th day of recovery in a row for the markets since we sold off heavily in the month of December. So what did I trade today, guys? What did I trade? Well, I traded UWT, which is one of the ETFs that we called out in yesterday's video.  So congrats to you. Shout out to you. If you did trade UWT today, because that ETF went absolutely bananas today, absolutely haywire.  We broke the 180 S&P here, which is where we were at when I recorded yesterday's video, right? If you guys remember that. And we were up $2.45. And obviously, guys, these ETFs that we trade, they move very quickly based on the underlying asset. And by this, I mean UWT, since it's a leveraged ETF, you can see it right here, right? 3X, it moves three times quicker than the underlying asset, which in this case is crude oil.  We can see it just based off the math, right? 5% day for crude oil, meaning that UWT should be up around 15%. And that's exactly what it was up, right? It was up 15.46%. I know the numbers don't add up exactly right, guys. It's not up exactly three times as much as crude oil. But it's in the same ballpark, right? It's not meant to be exact, guys. These ETFs don't correlate to the dot, you know, but they're very, very, very close to their underlying asset in terms of price action, in terms of price performance. So, guys, I traded this one today. All you guys know out there that I'm a very conservative trader. So I only took about 3% again on this trade, just like yesterday, I made 3% today. I made 3% again on UWT. And we can see exactly where I ended up doing that if we do get onto these closer term charts here. So, we noticed a big sell-off in crude oil this morning, I believe, once they reported the oil report today. I think crude oil dumped. This was at about 1023. So obviously, crude oil dumped around 1023. And we started to see some volume kicking back in. We broke out of the 180 SMA. We broke above the 50 SMA here on the intraday chart. And that's where I really started to see the opportunity in crude oil, especially since it was technically still on an uptrend based on the past couple of days, because this is still a higher low from the previous low if we're judging on an intraday basis here. So once we really started to kick up here, I added some money into UWT. And I added even more money when we broke this resistance at around 5150 in crude oil. And we can see how that correlated over here to UWT once I do pull this chart up. So I got into UWT guys right around $12.37, I believe, once we broke out of the 180 SMA, added a little bit of more money at about 1260 once we broke that resistance. So my average cost was right around here at around $12.45. And simply guys, I wrote it up 3% at this point. And I took my profits right at around $12.85. So from $12.45, guys, up to $12.85, that was a $0.40 per share gain, giving me a 3% profit on UWT. And my psychology behind this guys, why I ended up selling is because at this point in time, guys, picture me in this point in time, right? Without understanding and knowing what happened later on in the day. When I sold, guys, we were already extremely overextended in the ETF. We already made a higher high from earlier in the day. And especially from yesterday, guys, right literally $12.85, we were up already about $1.60 from where we closed yesterday. And the RSI was telling us we were overbought. So I figured that was a very good time to take my profits, right? And I could have made even more money, probably an extra 3% if I were to hold up to $13.26. But the whole entire idea, guys, of trading and being a consistent trader, which is way more important than getting an $1,000 profit in a day is being consistent, right? Is to take your profits and be consistent with taking your profits in your target for your day. I always tell you guys to make a daily goal in terms of percentage, or you can do dollar value, but I prefer making a percentage goal daily. And once you're in that range, guys, it's never a bad idea to just take your profits, close your laptop for the day, and just be done trading for the day, because that is how you avoid over-trading, maybe putting in money into a stock that's not doing too well. You avoid getting any FOMO feelings doing this. And it's really just worked for me over the past couple of years, just sticking to the targets. Once you hit the targets, stop trading for the day and focus on the next day, right? Obviously, I'm not taking my computer completely off think or swim for the rest of the day. I'm obviously still looking at charts, guys. I'm still studying, but I'm at the point in my trading career now where I don't get tempted to take trades because I consider myself extremely disciplined when it comes to trading and just everything I do in my life, guys. I go to the gym a lot. I run other businesses, right? I just am a very disciplined person when it comes down to what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And this has been able to transfer to my trading. And this is why I do what I do. And it's just really worked wonders for me. And I really hope that you guys can take that from this video and apply it to your own life, to your own trading style because I promise it will help you wonders, right? It'll do very well for you if you're able to just be patient, consistent, and stick to your daily goal and not get too greedy, guys. Very, very important. So, in terms of UWT's chart right now, guys, because I do want to potentially hop back into UWT is, you know, we're getting overbought, right? That's kind of obvious here. We're at the 80 level in terms of the RSI. And anything near 70, let alone over 70, is extremely overbought. And we can see, guys, we haven't seen a red candlestick in sight for UWT over the past couple of days. Plus, we're at a resistance right here under the 180 SMA. So, I wouldn't really be too surprised at this point in time if we do end up selling off for UWT, maybe back down to the $12 range, maybe do $11.50 again. It all depends on what crude oil is going to do. But, again, I think we're going to be selling off a tad bit here because we're overbought. It's extremely overextended in my personal opinion and what I can drag from these charts. And I just think a pullback is coming just like I think a pullback is coming for the entire stock market. So, another stock that did or rather an ETF that's looking very good right now, I think it's kind of forming a cup-and-handle pattern here, is Jnug, right? We talked about Jnug. I was able to trade this one a couple of days ago on this dip, and it pretty much played out perfectly, right, guys? It played nicely on this trend. We pulled back from $10.50 down to around $9.40, bounced back up. Now, we're testing previous resistances at around $10.50. So, if Jnug's able to break out of $10.50, if Gold is able to get back into the $1,300 range, I don't see a problem with Jnug. Maybe touching back into the $11 range, maybe even $12 range, if GC, Gold futures do get into the $1,305 range, maybe the $13.10 range, we're going to be seeing Jnug doing very well at that point in time. And I'm really looking to potentially trade Jnug, but I do want to see, guys, are we going to break out of this resistance, or are we going to do a sort of cup-and-handle pattern right here, get rejected and push down, or are we going to do a little cup-and-handle pattern here and then break to the upside. It's just what I'm seeing from these charts right here. I just see a slow cup-and-handle starting to form. We got the cup here, and now we're starting to see some movement right here. So, drop a comment. Let me know, guys, what did you end up trading today? I would love to know. What do you think about Jnug? Do you like this one going on to these next couple of days, next couple of weeks? I personally do. If you do, let me know why you do and why you see potential in it down below. In the comment section, I respond to every single comment. I love chatting with you guys, talking about stocks, investing options, whatever you guys want to talk about. Please, please, please drop a comment down below and we'll get to talking. So, that is what I'm looking at in terms of Jnug right now, guys, and in terms of inverse ETFs in general, Jnug, JDST, UWT, and DWT are all at the top of my list here, guys. If we go back to crude oil, you know how I'm going to approach this trade if crude oil does end up pulling back is I'm going to trade DWT on this pullback if we do get a confirmation of this pullback, right? And then once we start to consolidate, if we consolidate and maintain this uptrending pattern, that is where I'm going to get into UWT on the rise back up. So, that's the beauty of inverse ETFs, right, guys? You can play the pullback in the underlying asset, in this case being crude oil, and then you can play the reversal and the continuation of the uptrend in crude oil with the inverse, right? It's just a beautiful thing you can do. But again, leveraged ETFs, they're super volatile guys. They're really risky, especially for the beginner investor out there, which is why, you know, if you're a beginner out there, guys, trading leveraged ETFs is kind of difficult because they're meant more for the experienced trader. But, you know, if you do want to hop into them, guys, if you are more of a risk taker, you want to learn hands-on with volatile, you know, you know, assets like the ones we trade on this channel, go for it, guys. I'm not holding you back, but you might lose some money since you are a beginner if you do plan on trading these leveraged ETFs that do move extremely, extremely quickly. So that is what I'm mostly looking at, guys. I know I'm not looking at a bunch of stocks. I like to keep it to a small portion, which is what I always do.  That's what I do. I'm sure you all know that by now. If you've been watching me for a while, you know, it's nothing new to those loyal viewers out there, which I love you guys, by the way. Thanks a lot for viewing and, you know, watching these videos on a day-to-day. I truly, truly appreciate it. But, you know, that's just simply what it is, guys.  If we pull back, you know, TVIX is going to be a great play. You know, SQQQ is going to be a great play. But if we continue to uptrend, which I don't think it's going to last much longer, guys, to be completely honest with you guys, I've been saying this over these past couple of videos and in this video especially. But if we do continue to push up, you know, TQQQ and QQQ are going to be two inverse ETFs that you're going to be able to trade on, you know, when the market is pushing up. So, let's take a look at what Apple did today, guys. Apple actually broke the 50 SMA resistance here on the 180 chart. We see Facebook actually did decent today, guys. It was up about $1.70. Amazon did about $2 today. Really no movement in terms of Amazon. If anything, guys, I'm starting to see some consolidation and a curl down to the downside for Amazon. We're getting a little bit overbought here. We're at the top of a downwards trending channel right here for Amazon. So, honestly, I wouldn't be too surprised if we started to sell off pretty quickly in terms of Amazon. Netflix, very similar, guys, overbought. We're at the top of the channel here. We're starting to slow down, curl back down. You know, these are all indications that selling off could be coming, right? We can see it in Google here as well, you know, at the top of the channel, having some trouble getting above it. You know, we're getting a bit overbought on the RSI and it's really just curling down, looking pretty bearish right now in terms of Google's chart and Microsoft guys right at their resistance under the 180 SMA. We're getting a bit overbought as well. So, these are all, you know, factors that I look at to really just gauge the entire market, right? I like looking at the large cap stocks. Obviously, these ones right here are some of the biggest companies in the world and this really just helps me gauge what the market is doing and obviously looking at the futures, right? Large cap stocks, pre-market hours and doing my daily analysis on the large cap stocks and indices. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, feel free to drop a like, leave a comment, subscribe. Follow me on Instagram as well as on Twitter and join our Discord group chat as well as our Facebook group. All of those are linked down below in the description box. I'll catch you guys in the next video. Thanks for all the support. Again, I really, really appreciate it for all you guys out there. There are new viewers tuning in that watch my content every single day. I really, really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I'll catch you guys in the next video. Have a great night. Peace out.


Really, you know, I used to love Abbott and Costello you say Yeah, vaudeville was never this good. Yeah Suggesting the GOP debates that can come in Well It's natural comedy too but as far as Hillary Being the best choice Doesn't surprise me for a rich person to say that Of course the rich person is not going to say Bernie Sanders because a rich person is too damn stingy and greedy to admit That he should be paying most of the taxes the Constitution and hope the Constitutional element that made of the income back Yeah says He who makes the money Pays the tax. It's a progressive tax. Which is the most make more money. You pay more tax Which is the most fair tax system you can ever invent If you make more money, you pay more taxes. It's it's logical Well, that's why no conservative likes it. It's logical Yeah, you haven't heard anything logical from the Republican debates. Have you? You also haven't heard anything about the economy the job market the veterans the poor The plight of the poor the plight of the middle class. It was all about it was the same thing It was all about immigration and the military budget You know, and they're all tough guys, but none of them are veterans But they're all tough when it comes to war with your kid With your kids my kid and your kids Remember that remember that banner. We're not boots on the ground. We're human beings Yes, we're we're husband's we're wise parents. Yeah, we're sons and daughters. We're human beings We're not boots on the ground It's just true In her primary campaign against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders Clinton has pushed back Against concerns among some liberals that her time in the Senate Representing New York left her too close to Wall Street Bankers a Notion that Buffett's appearance was aimed at ally Quintenade said she would provide more details In the new year on how she would push for higher taxes on the wealthy beyond the framework of the Buffett rule some of her signature domestic spending proposals including plans to curb student debts and rebuild roads and bridges Would be paid for by raising taxes On the well Yeah, not raising taxes to Up to a lousy 35 or 40 percent raising taxes like they used to be when Eisenhower was around you know Before Reagan screwed everything up. Yeah, Reagan the Hollywood actor Who was said to be a lousy? Screen actors Guild president and a very good puppet in the White House Absolutely great puppet like G. W. Abouche Yeah, he too Yeah, he too very good. Well, he mr. G. W. Bush Put us in the hole financially Etc. Etc. And Obama is getting the blame Everything's Obama's fault Hey, hey, hey sound like Fat Albert there for a second. Yeah, Obama gets the blame for everything I would like to correct one thing though Under the Obama administration what they've been doing and etc. They brought back a lot of the jobs That went by by 2007-2008 under Bushy boy, but unfortunately they have not brought back all of them There are today in the United States Approximately 93 million people out of work Wow the actual unemployment rate could be About 22 percent Whereas it's down to five percent But that's because all these people Out of the war out of the workforce can't find jobs They're no longer getting unemployment insurance. They're not in the numbers They're not in there. They're not accounted for anymore. They're not counted for because they've given up They've given up again again welfare, and then you got the other problem.  That's correct And you know what's that that that the funny face that Mitch McConnell always makes that though we just can't afford everything is We can't afford to help veterans the poor the middle class So they can throw more money at the military, but they they can't afford to throw money at the military Okay, and and and to give Corporate wealth fair Subsidies to the rich. Yeah, they have the money for that. Oh, did we do? Oh, no, sorry for all food stamps veterans Healthcare system where where everyone can see the doctor no matter How poor they are? Oh, wow, can't we can't afford that? Oh, we don't have any money for that. Do do do And of course that is forgetting that the near over two-thirds of the economy is is Pushed by consumer spending, of course now the consumer doesn't have the money. What happens to the economy? Plumits even Henry Ford understood that that's why he started paying his people five bucks an hour a plummet so they can buy his cars because if you if you think intelligently and logically a happy healthy employee is A productive employee The happier and healthier they are productivity more they love their job the more Productivity is not a problem in America. There's a lot of productivity. The problem is it ain't getting rewarded Well, that's down below. Yeah, but rewarding is the incentive for productivity. Yeah, but it's not there anymore with the corporations That's where they cut.   All right, we're gonna hate their guts. All right We're gonna take a break for lunch. We'll see you in the next video. Well, let me say this again Yeah, that did not happen in Europe Because Europe has a better way of treating its workers Ah Employee wise and me employer wise and government and way wise all all way around northern Europeans are Happy are much happier people Do you see you got six weeks vacation to do you see those lazy bastards? Do you see Scandinavians? Trying to knock knock the door down to come to the United States. No way to immigrate to United States Absolutely, I don't see northern Europeans and Scandinavians desperate to come here. Oh, no, they're they'll be crazy They'll be they'll be fools You know anyway, we'll see it. We'll see a next next video, you know They have a family capitalism Well, it's it's not a crony capitalism. It's it's democratic socialism, but it's positive.  All right. We'll see you


This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. Taking risks requires courage and strength. Not many are willing to move out of their comfort zone, but Kevin Omolo is a true risk taker. Let's hear more. Kevin, take us through your journey. I think my journalistic journeys may be traced back to high primary school. When I was a student at Bungu Koraga primary school and Ranjira primary school, both in Nyando, I happened to become a debate prefect. At this point, I think I was good in communication, but written and spoken. So this is where I honed my skills in communicating and my love for media began when I could listen to KBC radio. My father was a good listener and an ardent listener of KBC soil service. So anytime he's not around, I would also switch on the radio and listen to Zili Zopendwa. And sometimes it was nice listening to people like Komuga Kabisae and the rest, especially around lunchtime. But then when I went to high school, I think I was good in languages. So I got more interest in writing at Utenaio High School, Nyando and Gendia High School in Homa Bay. So I was sure what I wanted to do. By the time I was leaving campus, when I applied for a journalism and mass communication course at Masindemuliro University in Kakamega and I was invited to take up the course and that is where everything now blew out. I became an editor of the university magazine. I was also a presenter in the university station and I think this experience enabled me to get to the insight of journalism and immediately I got out of school, I got employed by standard as a correspondent in Kisumu. I worked through the ranks and in 2021 I thought I needed to move out. So I resigned. Wow, you resigned. That's a weird decision to make. You worked up the ranks, so a thicker pilot you then decided to resign. Why did you make that decision? I think I thought I had achieved what I wanted to achieve in the mainstream and there are things that I was looking at maybe differently. If you look at especially the media was transforming and the audience is transforming and I was feeling there is a gap especially among the youths. So I started working out on a solution that I thought I could only manage when I'm out of the mainstream media. So that is how we came up with the Lekrijon bulletin which is a digital multimedia platform and we focused much on giving the youth a voice. So when exactly did you start thinking I should start like Lekrijon bulletin? I think I would say when I was joining the mainstream media after Kampas I gave myself five years. I'm not into employment per se but since there is this experience that I needed out there a lot of things that I was looking into I could only get the chance in the media setup. So I had an ambition of working only for five years and getting out and I'm telling me sometimes you get into employment and it's interesting you don't want to live. So I think after five years I started working on an exit strategy. So I attended a number of trainings I would attribute some of them to DW Academy where I got hands-on training on digital media and since the world was also moving towards digital media I thought this is the opportunity to now get out and utilize the knowledge and the skills that have gained through some of these trainings. So what gave you the drive now that young people are looking for employment yet you decided not reside? Yeah I think it's all about understanding yourself and what you want in life. Like I've mentioned before I had a vision I had targets that I had to achieve within specific timelines. So I was thinking if I remain here get comfortable I may not achieve what I have in myself. I understand that not everybody is into employment not everybody is into self employment. So once you understand yourself it's easier to have targets in your life and what you want to achieve. So the drive was I have a target. What do I do to achieve this target? So you have to work towards that target and that was the drive to ensure that I get out and establish what I wanted to establish. And how did your family or friends take your decision to resign at such a young age? I think it was difficult. I couldn't share it with a number of people and by the way I drafted my resignation letter three months before resigning so it was somewhere waiting for submission years. So I have a few friends that I shared with. I think within the workplace it was only one person that I told this is what I'm planning. With my family wife children brothers I never shared anything until the final month. So I approached them and told them I feel I'm getting out of employment. I think I need to do some other things. And the obvious questions you know how are you going to survive what is next for you. But if you plan your life well it's very easy to make such a decision. It's not something that you'd advise someone to wake up one day and say I'm resigning. So it's something I have planned over time and by the time I was now getting out it was ripe for me to get out. And so what was the goal behind starting the lake region? When I was in a standard media I ventured more on feature writing especially on some of the least told stories environment, agriculture but then sometimes you do some of these stories and you interact mostly with the old people who are in agriculture. You interact with old people who are in environment climate change issues but once in a while when you get a young person in agriculture you feel motivated and you are like this is a story that needs to be told. So the more you tell the stories the more you get interested into more. And I think it reached a time I was now feeling why don't I now focus on telling the stories of these young people who are my colleagues because at some point by the way I felt I needed to get out and venture into agriculture because you could go telling these stories and you find these people are struggling but they are making it. Most of them were getting into agriculture maybe because they are schooled but they can't get employment so they are saying let me do this as I look for employment but once you do these stories and people come in and encourage them they find that it's the opportunities that they have in the simple things that they are doing is so enormous but if those stories are not told to the world for some people to emulate or for some networking to happen to them then they feel discouraged. So some of the people that did their stories we found out that they were getting some of these networks someone is calling you that I saw a story about so and so can I have the contact I want to do this and that with them so you feel encouraged and it moves you. So I believe starting a media organization needs a lot of work so how did you go about it? One I think everything is always possible it just determines how much effort you put into it so for me having worked in a mainstream media I understood how the media operates so when I was thinking of now establishing this I had to go into consultation go into friends colleagues and ask questions on maybe some of the things that you feel you needed to understand before you can establish it I also have friends and people I know who started media houses and they collapsed and you could find even some of your friends discouraging you telling you no I don't think this is the best age for you to do it but sometimes when you have a vision and you want to achieve it you just have to get out there and everything has consequences every decision that you make has consequences so I decided every information that I needed to establish it I have it I've evaluated the pros and cons and I discovered that yes it's something that I can do Speaking of media houses that have collapsed did you ever think to have a backup plan in case something like that happened to you? Sure I had a backup plan I had been doing part time teaching at Maseno University and I thought this was an opportunity for me to understand the other side of life you know in the media we have the practice and the academia so this gave me an opportunity to have a backup plan such that it's not what I was looking at as the immediate thing to sustain myself but I was doing other businesses on the site and also using the same to get networking to support the media house and also support myself and the family so because in initial stages you are likely for any business you do not expect to start getting income immediately so if you don't have a backup plan it's disastrous Yeah and how has that experience been owning your own media organization? Yes I think for every self employment there is always that aspect of freedom there's aspect of experimenting a lot of things which you cannot do in when you are employed so it gives me an opportunity to try out things some of them work some don't if they don't work we come back and try to find out why didn't it work what can we do to improve this and that there is also that freedom of making decision when you are employed there are decisions that have to go through bureaucrative processes so by the time that decision is made they look at a lot of implications such as financial media ownership and all that so when you have this opportunity I think it has been beneficial to a number of people we have young people who are missing opportunities because they can't get into the media houses some of them get out of campus and they think I have to work for the mainstream of the big media houses and once they fail to get those opportunities a lot of them get into depression so we've been providing space for some of these people people are doing good write ups and they want a space where they can publish some of this because the media is just a platform for you to express your feeling express what you have and I find it very easy when I have to make decisions on who I can give an opportunity to express themselves which they may not find out them and seeing that you have tested the mainstream media and now you're running your own media organization what unique thing would you say you're doing that other media houses are yet to do? I think like when we were beginning you do not have resources so there is the aspect of having of the human resource which is a disadvantage on our side so it meant going for the young people who are not yet out there who will not be demanding so much but this comes with a disadvantage that you have to invest a lot in them before they can get there so I think we provide like a mentorship opportunity because if you get people who are coming out of campus people who have diploma degree getting out of campus and you give them an opportunity and you walk them through after two, three, four months five months then you see someone can produce a content that is acceptable then you feel this is an achievement providing opportunities for like a lot of media related organization that the organizations that support media some give grants to journalists to do stories some of the freelance writers do not have space where they can publish their stories so if you provide this because for the mainstream media it's a bit tricky for them to accept many of these freelance writers so if you can do it as an alternative media that what we are providing you find we are giving space for these people where they can express themselves and also satisfy their need to communicate because media is all about communication and passing a message here and seeing that you took that risk and you decided let me resign and start this what are your achievements so far what I would want to say one is the achievement because when I was getting out I have friends and foes who are predicting that you might not go past two months you see so once you manage to go past that then you feel you have achieved something but what makes me glad is that you are providing space for people who would otherwise lack space where they can express themselves especially the youth then you are also providing mentorship programs like currently we have four interns from the local universities so when they come in like I told you I also teach in the university and you see the kind of trouble they have even getting attachment because there are so many students but few media organizations if you come to online I think I've also achieved something by providing authentic media platform in the digital platform today we have a lot of digital outlets and most of them are not run ethically and professionally most of them are looking into scandals so and so is engaged in one two three for the purposes of just capturing and moving the audience but with the experience that you have in the mainstream we are trying to bring that mainstream to the local community so I think that's an achievement that you have made and we are not looking into competition but feeling the gap that is left by either the mainstream or the digital media which are running in an unethical manner Speaking of competition have you met a sort of an organization that is just like yours and you feel like yeah obviously we if you are in the game we are not alone we have a number of people so we look at what in addition do you have that the other organization may not have one I came with the experience from the mainstream media and the networking from the mainstream media so it was easier to divert them that oh I'm no longer there this is where I am now some of our I would say competitors but we are not competing most of them have not had experience in the media most of them are not accredited by the authorities that regulate the media so you cannot put a face to most of them so there is just some site that's churning out information mostly unethical but you can't put a face most of the writers is by our reporter so when we are coming out as providing an alternative which would be like a mainstream media in a local society but providing everything that the other mainstream media would be providing interesting we have spoken about the achievements what about the challenges what challenges did you encounter while doing this yeah I think the challenge with every new thing you are always getting into uncharted waters you may not know how deep it is so when you are coming out and you are starting liquidion bulletin we didn't know one who is the audience that we are going to target so you touch this and that touch this and that and at the end you find out that this is where our strength is so when we discovered our strength is in telling the stories of the youth we overcame that challenge we also had the challenge of finances which we haven't overcome yet because when you are starting out financing is not very easy like for my case where I used part of my savings to invest into one to three to start up the business it was it was not easy because now you are no longer salaried you have to survive from your saving and it is part of the saving that you have to invest in this so you find that it takes time to pick up you need equipment you need space you need to pay bills you also need to maybe remunerate those who are helping you around so this is a big challenge so if but we get a number of people coming in some of them want to support in a way but not many of them would support you if they can't see that resilience so someone would be expecting that if you run this thing for two years then we believe it's serious but no one would want to support you when you are two months old eight months old one year old but these are challenges that we hope we'll get through and where do you see a future in black region bulletin yeah I think when you are starting up we were to bring an alternative digital multimedia platform and that is where we see ourselves we see ourselves having a studio we see ourselves having enough mentorship enough stuff that can help in the mentorship program where we can produce content for audio video text pictures so with this we are looking into an all-rounded generally said that people who come in as as interns of those who come in on attachment can come out as fully molded journalists who can fit in any any sector so this is not something that can be achieved very soon we know it takes time and our hope is that once we get more people coming in to support more networking then we are able to achieve that you are a risk taker that's for sure but what can you tell someone out there who believes maybe niki kakwa ii employment interweza ko sustain myself you know they don't think taking that risk is worth it what can you say I think anything that anyone does has a risk even in employment you risk being sacked so you have to be a proactive first understand yourself and what you can do because in employment there is this term but permanent and pensionable so that there's nothing permanent we've seen people who are on permanent terms being sacked and it can be very painful when you're sacked and you start life from zero what I would advise maybe the youth I know people have different potentials that those who cannot survive out of employment that those who cannot survive in self employment so anything that you are doing just understand yourself know that you are satisfying yourself and you're satisfying your your egos so that by the time you make a decision then it's a decision that you are sure of yes wow thank you so much Kevin for coming I am glad to have sit down with you because I have learned something from your experience and I am sure my audience has learned as well that is how it is you have to know yourself so that you can take that risk your friend's path is not the same as yours it's about you taking the risk to find out what you can do best is it employment is it self employment go ahead and take off because this is how you make it to success this has been youth in action I am Nyangweso Gremis