WRO #57 Dirty Volume, Why I Stopped Using Volume, Vol. One

Well, howdy folks. It's Mike again. This

is going to be interesting. Most likely

a train wreck, but we will see. We'll

try to keep this train going down these tracks. So,

tracks. So, we are finally going to touch on volume.

As many of you know, I look at volume as dirty data. Like some of you say that I

dirty data. Like some of you say that I don't think is relevant. You're full of it. I've never said it's not relevant.

it. I've never said it's not relevant.

It's extremely relevant. extremely

important, something I wish I could use in my analysis because I used it for the vast majority of my career, but over the

last, I don't know, decade, it's I've gotten more and more away from it to the point where over the last several years, I don't even look at it

at all. Maybe the last five years, I

at all. Maybe the last five years, I don't even look at it at at all. And

people keep on asking why. And I keep saying, well, at first I was saying it's like a long topic. It's maybe an hour long. And then I started thinking about

long. And then I started thinking about it. I'm like, no, that's two hours long.

it. I'm like, no, that's two hours long.

And I started thinking about it some more. And I was like, no, that's like

more. And I was like, no, that's like six hours long. And I was thinking about I'm like, I don't think I could ever teach this of what's in my head of why I think the volume is dirty. And I

thought, how in the world am I going to express this to people? Because I'm

trying to help folks. I mean, that's what this channel is about is trying to help folks. And so if I just say it's

help folks. And so if I just say it's dirty, but I don't tell you my thinking, it doesn't do any good, right? So I'm

going to try to get through um a series on volume and I'm going to call it this volume one of Dirty Volume and because I think that's funny. So

this will be uh volume one. I have no idea how many volumes we're going to have. And what the plan is is to record

have. And what the plan is is to record a bunch of these and you know a bunch of volumes of of dirty volume and then when

I get the chance I'm going to go through and edit all I'm going to release them one at a time as as I record them. But

then I will go through and edit it down as much as it can. And so then it's just one one volume or maybe two volumes because this could be like I don't know.

I have no idea because as as we go through this, you're going to see how many different things it touches on and how this is just this big onion of a

problem. It's like you start peeling it

problem. It's like you start peeling it back and then it's like more and more and more problems. And like I said, I don't use it at all and I used to use it religiously. I I

built indicators and things just for Bill and I to use specific specifically for volume that we never released to anybody. It's pretty much just the two

anybody. It's pretty much just the two of us that were that were using it. So I

I took volume very seriously. Um and it was very important. Well, it is very important. It's just that I don't think

important. It's just that I don't think you can get a read on dirty data. So, I

will try to again I'm going to do these in a normal rambling fashion because I was going to plan this out and and you know have all these talking points and an order, but I've never done that for

any of these. If you haven't figured it out, it's all off the cuff and I go where my mind um just thinks at the time because I've

got a full-time gig and I've got a lot going on in my life. So, I don't really have time. you don't have I don't have

have time. you don't have I don't have time to do these, but I love doing them and um I want to continue putting one of these out a week and if I start planning

for it, then you I I just I I don't have the time for that. So, this is going to be another rambling episode and and I figured that was the only way I could

get through this volume. So, if you are hardcore and rigid in your thought process and you don't have an open mind, I'm sorry for you. Should probably

rethink that. But if that's you, stop watching now.

Do not put in the comments below. Mike

is crazy because he doesn't think volume is is is accurate data and it's so important and we know this because Bill said this and Liverour said or no, not

really, but like all of the other ones.

I mean you go back to you know the very beginning of technical analysis and how important volume is because it's confirmation right I mean if you don't

know if you don't understand I guess I can't assume knowledge uh volume is important it's just dirty so if you want to use

dirty data like would you want to eat like if you dropped your food on the floor and the floor is dirty well if I dropped food on the floor. I don't care how clean it is. I'm not eating it. But

if you drop food on the floor and the floor is dirty, are you going to want to eat that? I don't think so. So,

eat that? I don't think so. So,

you know, why would you use something that's dirty? I I just don't I I don't

that's dirty? I I just don't I I don't get it. Yes, I'm a little OCD or a lot

get it. Yes, I'm a little OCD or a lot of OCD, but it's not that. It's about

having accurate accurate information.

And as we go through this series, you'll get to understand that. And even if you still use volume when we're done with this, I can't fathom that. But if you

still use it, at least you might pick up on some other things that that are important. What is volume? Volume is the

important. What is volume? Volume is the number of shares that are traded on an instrument, right? So the price, you got

instrument, right? So the price, you got the open, high, low, and close. the only

thing you truly know. You've got all the fundamentals which you pretty much know those but you remember Enron and you know others like that. So you can't

always trust it but the vast vast vast majority of the times you can. you know,

there's questionable fundamental data with once you start getting into non-GAAP numbers and and things, but still as long as you're using apples with apples

and your comparison to stocks, there's, you know, I don't really have a problem with fundamental data, I lean heavier on on sales than I do on earnings because

earnings can be manipulated to a certain extent. Sales is really, really hard

extent. Sales is really, really hard unless you're doing kind of fraud, like fraud type of stuff. So, what do we know? We know we we'll just say

know? We know we we'll just say fundamental information is accurate. So

fundamental information is accurate.

Price information is deadly accurate. I

mean unless your data source is is got some bugs in it which yeah they all do but like primarily where the the open,

high, low and close are on any given instrument during a day um on any given day. But the volume, do you really know

day. But the volume, do you really know that number?

No, you don't. You don't know what the true volume number is from the concept of what volume is. So,

let's go over the concept. So, the

concept of volume is that it's confirming the price action. So, let's

say the stock breaks out of a base and goes up 10% in a day.

Well, you the old thought process, traditional thought process, everyone's thought process except for mine is that you want to you don't really trust that

unless the the volume is confirming that price action. And so, I'll just give you

price action. And so, I'll just give you a little hint. these days, go look for a stock that went up 10% on a day, unless it's an a high ATR that that's a normal

day, but let's just say it's a stock that trades on average 3% a day up and down and it's up 10%. Find me one on a

full traded uh trading day where that move happened throughout the day and that volume isn't extremely high. Go

have fun. Yeah, you'll find a few, but it like it'll probably be like I'm not talking like going into a holiday weekend or the thing moved in the last five minutes or something. It's you're

going to have volume move along with price these days. That wasn't always the case. So, back in the day, and I'm

case. So, back in the day, and I'm talking before I was born, the concept was you can get a lot of false moves in the market, and that stock goes up a

whole bunch, but unless you have that real buying demand there, it's not going to stay up there because all it would be would be the market makers moving away from not wanting to get stuck with those

shares. So, they just keep on raising

shares. So, they just keep on raising the raising the offer. Well, just again, I don't want to assume any basic knowledge. So when you're that's why

knowledge. So when you're that's why this is going to be so long. When you're

buying a stock, there's a bid and an ask, right? So the ask is what you're

ask, right? So the ask is what you're going to pay for it and the bid is what you're going to sell it for. So the

difference is the spread. So let's say the the ask the bid is 51 and the ask is 51 a half. meaning if you put a market

order in um for the amount of shares that are being offered there, that's a another topic, but um you're going to get 51 a

half or better, you know, but you're going to get 51 a half if you're going to buy it. And then to sell it, you're and that's taking the ask or you're

taking the offer, same thing. And then

the bid is where you would sell it.

That's in that case fif uh 51. So a 50 cent spread. Um and so that that's

cent spread. Um and so that that's that's where you would you know you just sell a market order goes down you know and hits that then that's what you're

looking at. So the spread the difference

looking at. So the spread the difference that 50 cents in the this example is your cost to is your cost for that transaction.

So let's think through that. You go in and you want to buy the stock. You pay

51 and a half. All of a sudden, the market does something funky. The stock

does something or or you want to turn around and sell it. Well, now you you've hit the bid and that spread. That's your

cost. And then on top of that, you've got commissions back in the day. So,

that would really have someone go in there and say, "Oh, I really want to pay this." Because a 50 cent spread back in

this." Because a 50 cent spread back in the day was kind of a good spread. Like

sometimes they were a buck or so and even on lowerric stocks the and $40 stocks with a a buck spread was not

unusual um at all and some spreads would be even bigger. Meaning the true cost to buy

bigger. Meaning the true cost to buy that is not what the price is, it's the price that you can get on the way in and the price you can get on the way out.

Now, if you're dealing with size, then that's even a bigger problem. We will

get into all of these in in the episodes, but I'm just trying at the most basic level. Let's think. Let's

just kind of think through this. The

volume is in theory confirming that price action because there was a cost associated with with that transaction.

Now, in a nutshell, there is no cost now relative to back then. there's still

always a little slippage, right? So,

let's say unless you're dealing with something very thin, the difference between the bid and the ask, right? It's

not going to be 51 to 512. It's going to be maybe 5145 or or 5149 by 51 a half.

So, your spread is going to be tiny. So,

you could meaning you could just go in and buy it at the market and get that 512 and then go, "Oh, oh, that was a mistake. let me sell it. And you get

mistake. let me sell it. And you get 5149 or 5148.

And in that case, you you've got this tight and now there's no um commission in most cases, right? There are are some brokers that

right? There are are some brokers that that do charge commission and and uh and I do trade through one of those because it it um it has some some bells and

whistles. that's interactive broker that

whistles. that's interactive broker that that I choose to go um with that and and have a have a tiny little commission.

But back in the day, commissions were a big big big deal and the spreads were a big deal. And you don't have that now

big deal. And you don't have that now unless you're trading. Well, we won't get into that. This is where the I'm really trying to stay as focused as I

can. But the whole problem with this is

can. But the whole problem with this is once you start thinking or talking about one thing, it goes off into all these different elements. So, let's kind of

different elements. So, let's kind of summarize what we have, the knowledge that we have so far. When you go in to buy a stock, you are going to at the

market, you're going to be paying uh the ask or the offer. Same thing. And then

to turn around and sell it, you're going to sell at the bid. Now, your broker might give you a better price in there, but that's the price that you that's your kind of default, the bid and the

ask. And the difference there is your

ask. And the difference there is your true cost. Because if you go and you buy

true cost. Because if you go and you buy it, you turn around and sell it. What

whatever you lost in there, that is your cost. You know, really excluding any of

cost. You know, really excluding any of the market movement. So just thinking instantaneously you buy it and you turn around and sell it. What does that cost

you? And then we'll assume that there's

you? And then we'll assume that there's no commission for now. So that is your because for most people they you don't

pay commission. The vast majority of

pay commission. The vast majority of folks don't pay commission. So now you have this tiny little true cost. So if

you're going to go in there and just buy something, well, it's no big deal. You

don't really think through it. But back

in the day, you are really making a commitment because if you're going to go in there and let's just say that we'll just label it for now as a transaction cost, meaning the slippage,

the spread, and the commission. So

slippage. Oh god, I have to jot down notes of like things to make sure that we circle back to either on this volume or another one. So slippage.

Oh, shoot. I'm just going to tell you, I don't want a freaking notepad here of stuff. So, as I think of it, I'm just

stuff. So, as I think of it, I'm just going to talk about it. So, slippage is the reality of the marketplace. If

you're doing any type of size, so if you're just going in buying 100 or 200 shares or an odd lot or something like that, you don't really deal with slippage unless Okay, I'm back. I had

some sort of computer issue. So, we were talking about slippage. So, the um if you're dealing with any size, right? And

that's what we're thinking of too when we're looking at volume in and a lot of confirmation of volume. Any size that you're going in, let's say you're going to buy 10,000 shares of something. Well,

you're not going to get the offer price because if you do get the offer price, you don't want it. Trust me. So, let's say again,

want it. Trust me. So, let's say again, it's let's do it. It's trading uh 5140 by 5150, meaning 5140 on the bid. That's

where you can sell it. And it's a 10 cents spread, meaning that the difference between the two is 10 cents.

So, uh, 5140 to sell, 5150 to buy. So,

now you you've got 10,000 shares that you want to that you want to buy, which is a normal thing for, you know, anyone dealing with, you know, any size, any institutional, you know, orders or

whatever. So now you're going in there

whatever. So now you're going in there and you've got to figure out how can you get as close to 5150

as possible. So you start buying it and

as possible. So you start buying it and maybe buy 500 shares of 5150 and then it stays there. Then then you

go and you buy another 500 shares and now it stays there. You're like, "Oh, this is pretty cool." Then now you're done on 1,000 of those 10,000 shares.

Now you go in and you buy another uh let's say 300 shares because you don't want them to know that you know it's you. And if you're going in there 500

you. And if you're going in there 500 500 500 that's obvious that it's you.

You're you're trying it's a big poker game, right? So you're not trying to

game, right? So you're not trying to share your hand with anybody. So now you go in and buy another 300. Well, what uh what do the market makers do? most

likely, all things being equal, they raise that. Now, they could either

raise that. Now, they could either um open the spread up by bringing the 5140 down lower

um or they they raise the 5150 up higher. So, let's think through this in

higher. So, let's think through this in both ways that now your true cost is increasing. Either way they do it, and

increasing. Either way they do it, and they could do it in both directions.

they could open up the spread. And this

is what happens in a fastmoving uh market because you got to think there's someone on the other side, right? A

computer or a person, a market maker, and they don't want to get hosed and they see all this buying pressure coming in with these orders, then they can get

the the sense of that and then lift it, right? So what they we'll we'll

right? So what they we'll we'll just think of this in segments. Let's

keep the spread the same 10 cent spread 5140 by 5150. Now they see this buying pressure go going in there and they're

making the difference between the two, right? Because if they buy they sell it

right? Because if they buy they sell it to you for 5150 then um and they're buying it from somebody else at 51.40 they're pocketing

the difference. Now they're not always

the difference. Now they're not always pocketing that difference because they're not always going to get that full spread. that's a risk that they're

full spread. that's a risk that they're taking on.

So they they sit there and go, "Okay, buying pressure coming in. Let me lift the ask." So then they go they go,

the ask." So then they go they go, "Okay, well, we're going to go from 5150 to 5155."

to 5155." And they're going to raise the the bid up there by a nickel as well. So they're

going a nickel up. So you still have a 10-centent spread. Don't worry if you're

10-centent spread. Don't worry if you're getting confused. we'll we'll we'll

getting confused. we'll we'll we'll we'll fix this. So now it's going up um a nickel because they see this buying

pressure in there. So now it's 5145 by 5155 and you've only done 1300 shares. Now

you've got, you know, uh another 8,700 shares to do. You're like, shoot, this is getting away from me. Let me do a bigger order. Let me go in and put 700

bigger order. Let me go in and put 700 shares in and see if I can get that. and

they do um they do 100 there. They fill

100 of that at 5155 and then they raise that that that offer up another nickel.

Now they go up to 50 uh 5160 and but they keep in this case they says yeah there's someone in there I don't want to get hosed if and so I'm going to

keep the the bid at 5145. So now the spread has gone up to 15 cents, right?

And as that order is getting worked, now this order isn't isolation. There's

other buyers and there's buyers who see this going on and then maybe they're jumping in as well or the market's moving as well. And so that is going to magnify this. But let's just forget

magnify this. But let's just forget about all that. This is just your order right now that we're talking about.

So now we we've gone through and we've done 2,000 shares. We It leaves 8 8,000

and this is it's moving now. So now it's all the way up to 5175 by 5150. So now

it's a quarter spread. This is how it used to work. Like this is exactly how it used to work. So now it's a quarter spread. Started off as a as a dime

spread. Started off as a as a dime spread and now it's a quarter spread.

and you are still not done. You've got

eight you've got 8,000 more to do it.

Maybe you're getting scared and you just say just let me let me call the desk and this is back in the day. Maybe you work that order through like a block desk or something like that. We're not going to

talk about that today cuz that's that's an onion. It's a whole different thing.

an onion. It's a whole different thing.

So let's just say you're you're still working this order yourself. So now you maybe you go and sit on the bid right now because that's how you can become

the market maker, right? So to speak. So

it's 5150 by 51 uh75.

So now in the decimalization time frame because we'll we'll have to talk about the whole going from fractions to decimals maybe in a different episode,

but that that impacts us too. So, we've

got you go on the inside bid. So, now

you're at 51 51 because you've improved it a little bit because you're jumping in front because if someone wants to sell their shares at the market, you want to be the first in line to get

that. So, now it's you're at 5151

that. So, now it's you're at 5151 by 5175. So, you're sitting on the bid

by 5175. So, you're sitting on the bid and maybe you're you're only showing 100 shares there, but behind it you've got

5,000 shares. So if someone hits you

5,000 shares. So if someone hits you hits the bid with size even though there's a 100 shares showing meaning if people were looking at the data which

let's call it level two um which the level two back in the day you used to have all the bids because there's not just a bid there at at 51 and a half or 5151.

There's a bid there at 5151 5150 5149 5148 and and so on. And then there's different amounts at each of these levels and people are looking at that.

Same thing with above it, right? You

know, we're at 5175 asking, right?

There's 5176, 517 and so on. So it's not just one level.

You're just when you see the normal quote, you're just looking at the best level. So you got the spread, you got

level. So you got the spread, you got the levels, you got the size there. And

now I'm I'm on the buy side and I'm going, man, this thing is getting away from me. I'm sitting on the inside bid,

from me. I'm sitting on the inside bid, meaning you went to 5151 with that 100 shares. Someone hits that,

meaning sells it to you and they sell 100 shares and now it's executed at 50.

I know this is complicated at first, but you'll go back and and and maybe jot this down and and the people who have been trading a long time, you get where I'm going. If you're trading, if you're

I'm going. If you're trading, if you're newer, you're confused as heck. I would

be confused as heck, but trust me, we'll get there.

So, you're you're sitting on an inside bid at 5151 and you you've got 5,000 shares behind that that is hidden that people aren't

seeing and you're showing 100 shares there and someone, you know, doesn't realize that there's buying uh buying pressure or maybe they've been waiting for the buying pressure and they want to

sell into that. So they hit you um at the 51 uh 51 for 100 shares. And so now you've absorbed that, right? So now

you've got 2,100 shares done, right? And

you're working the rest. What you leave 7,900.

Now you're sitting there and you're going, you're still showing that 100.

And they know that. This is a big poker game. They know that, but they don't

game. They know that, but they don't know how much size is behind it. So

someone's like, "Let me see how much size is there. let me hit it for 2,000 shares. And so now they they go down and

shares. And so now they they go down and and they hit you for 2,000 shares and then they get done on the whole thing and they're like, "Oh, wow. There's a

buyer in there." And everyone else sees that because they're looking at time and sales. So back in the day, what? Well,

sales. So back in the day, what? Well,

not back in the day, you still have it.

You you would have all those transactions or all those bids and offers as I was talking about, not just the inside the the best bid and offer.

You've got all the ones behind it and then separately you're looking at the time and sales meaning okay how many shares were executed and at what price

and that's a tape reader that's what you do that's what I used to do all the time you religiously I had a huge edge doing that because I got very good at it I'm just being honest you know really good

at it um is worked with my personality to be able to understand the level two and and how that worked And I wasn't day trading, but this is

just when you were dealing with size in a concentrated account, you you had to understand that. And um okay, so now

understand that. And um okay, so now we've done well, we've done uh what, like let's say we've done a few more.

Now, let's just say we we've been able to pick up 5,000 shares, right? So,

we've we've done 5,000 shares, leaves 5,000, but because everyone has seen

that those shares had hit at 5151 with those the 2,000 shares got executed there even though 100 shares were being offered. Everyone else knows, wow,

offered. Everyone else knows, wow, there's a buyer in there, so I'm going to jump in front of this person. So you

were at 5151 and they jump in at 5152 and someone else goes, "Oh, I know what game is going on there." So they go, "No, I'm going to go up a few more cents. I'm going to go up to 5155 on the

cents. I'm going to go up to 5155 on the bid side." At the same time that this is

bid side." At the same time that this is happening, the spread was a quarter, right? Because it was 5150 by 5175.

right? Because it was 5150 by 5175.

That that keeps on increasing. So now

the ask is increasing as well as the bid going up. Now, this this stock is is

going up. Now, this this stock is is moving is now is moving up and those are real real transactions that that that

are are going on there. Um, but a lot of that like your transactions, you're really wanting to buy this, but a lot of these

other players that are in there, they're just trying to make the spread, right?

They're trying to um sell it to you at the 5175 and then buy it from people at the 5151.

But now we're all the way up to let's say this has been going on for a while.

Let's say now that the bid is 5175 offering 52. So it's moved all the way

offering 52. So it's moved all the way up there. This is normal. And you still

up there. This is normal. And you still have your you have your quarter spread.

So, if you want to just buy at the market, you can buy your 100 shares at 52 and you can sell it your 100 shares at 51 uh 75 unless there's more size

there. Let's just assume there's there's

there. Let's just assume there's there's only 100 shares showing. Everyone's just

showing 100 shares with the exception meaning that you have you put it there.

You have you're you're saying that you will buy or sell 100 shares there, whatever you're you're putting. But now,

let's say somebody um is like, "Oh, this thing is moving and I've got all these shares that have been sitting on for a long time." Maybe they've got 300,000

long time." Maybe they've got 300,000 shares and they were like, "I just want to lighten up on this. So, I'm going to offer out 5,000 shares above

the the best offer." So, the best offer was 52. So, they're going to go, "You

was 52. So, they're going to go, "You know what? Someone really wants to

know what? Someone really wants to stretch and get themselves done. I'm

going to put this these shares at at at at 5210 or 52. Yeah, let's say 5210. So, a

or 52. Yeah, let's say 5210. So, a

nickel above or or 10 cents above the the inside ask. So, the inside ask is at

at at uh 52. The inside bid is at 5175.

And stay with me. You'll you'll you'll be okay. So, we've got a quarter spread.

be okay. So, we've got a quarter spread.

I'm bidding 100 shares at at uh 5175, offering 100 shares at 52, but there's 5,000 shares above the ask at 5210.

So, I'm sitting there going, man, I know how this is going to work. I'm going to just keep on getting 100 shares here, 500 shares there, and this thing is going to keep ripping up way past the

5210. So, I'm deciding, you know what?

5210. So, I'm deciding, you know what?

I'm just going to stretch up and I'm going to go ahead and just take those that that 5,000 shares at 5210. So, I'm

paying up 35 cents more than I would normally if I just sat and was patient and sitting there on the bid, right, with the the inside bid was 5175. So,

I'm going to go all the way up to 50 5210 um and buy those 5,000 shares and just grab those.

Now that goes out on the time and sales.

So now I'm done. I've got my 10,000 shares done and the average cost is somewhere you know in between there closer to 52 because I stretched up to 5210.

Now everyone sees that someone paid above the ask and got these shares done and you know and you would have gotten whatever was there at 52 as well and

5201 and 52 you know but you you've gone up and you you've grabbed those you've grabbed everything up to the 5210 to get done. So now you're done, right? You're

done. So now you're done, right? You're

sitting there. Okay, your average cost, let's call it 5190.

And everyone else out there, they don't know if you're done or not. They don't

know if you have more size or not. So

then there's all this movement that is going on and people testing things out and moving things around. But that's the market the the very basic level of

market mechanics. So, let's let's kind

market mechanics. So, let's let's kind of summarize what we've done so far because this is going to get not everything is going to get complicated, but I could

see this being complicated if you've never traded this way. If you just gone into your whatever you're using, your Robin Hood app or your interactive broker or Fidelity or whoever, and

you're just like, "Oh, buy me a 100 shares." And don't even think about it.

shares." And don't even think about it.

You're just like, "What's the price?"

Okay, buy me 100 shares. you're not

thinking about the market mechanics behind it and right now this is all done by computers like there's the vast majority of it is done by computers even

if a person is directing it it's algo related which is one of the issues that that we will end up talking about. So during

these this normal transaction that you were going in there there was a lot of other volume that wasn't truly buying buying demand out there. It was just

market makers going, there's somebody in there who's trying to get a position of this. Let me jump in front of them. And

this. Let me jump in front of them. And

they're just trying to make the difference in the spread. They're trying

to buy it. As that spread opened up from the original, what did I say? Maybe 10

cents, five or 10 cents up to the to the quarter. They're trying to make the

quarter. They're trying to make the difference between their buying it on the bid, selling it on the offer, and then making as much of that quarter as they can. And that's how they do that

they can. And that's how they do that all day long. And even if they get just a little bit that add that adds up and that's, you know, big big money over a year. But so with this, people also

year. But so with this, people also don't want to get hosed. So you get a lot of this activity that's going on and that translates into volume on the tape.

Now let's say there was a big expense to people on that and less volume in the market. So there was more of a chance

market. So there was more of a chance that you are getting caught with that.

So right now the volume is very very liquid compared to what it was historically because there are lots of players in there, your natural players

and your passive players. Meaning

passive I would say is anything related to ETFs where it's not true buying demand for that one individual stock.

It's buying demand for let's say you're buying the Q's. Someone's in there buying the Q's. Well, the Q's are a hundred different stocks, right? And

maybe their real intention is they want to buy some more Nvidia or Apple or Amazon or what have you. And that's what they really want to increase. But it's

also going to come along with Google and and all, you know, all of the other ones down to your smallest of that that uh

of the the cues, whatever your your your smallest waiting is of the cues. So

there that's more passive and that's a whole topic for another one of these.

Man, this is going to be hard to teach.

>> [gasps] >> Oh my god, what did I get myself into?

This is going to be a mess. This is

going to be a lot of them, but I got to do it, right? Because I put myself out there saying volume is dirty. So, I got to explain all this stuff. So,

let's do just a cliffnotes version of what's going on. You've got the spread, the difference between what you pay pay for it or you can sell it for. And you

have different size along along there.

Um, so you've got your spread, you've got your different size, and then back in the day you had commissions, which were significant. Then you got what I

were significant. Then you got what I was just explaining which was slippage meaning you're going in there with any size and what you see on the tape which

was re originally I think we said the offer was 5150 that now but we paid 5190 for these

10,000 shares and be like well why didn't you get 5150? Well, because there was only 100 shares offered there and by the time we worked this order, now we're up to 5190.

And during that, you had a lot of other volume that was going on that wasn't truly going along with your shares much

more now than back in the day because one of the things is these spreads are so small compared to what they used to be. I mean, you could have had a buck 50

be. I mean, you could have had a buck 50 spread back in the day. What I mean easily a buck 50. So you're paying 5150

and then you're selling it for 50 50.0 50 the figure. Um and we that was being very very normal. So, if you're going to

go in there now when there um when spreads are tight and commission is is is cheap and if you got to just blow out those 10,000 shares, well, you can dump

it into an algo and get out maybe 25 cents or 50 cents or something like that. So, there was a cost involved. So,

that. So, there was a cost involved. So,

size always increases that cost. But

let's say you were um back in the day and you were going to do this. Well,

man, your slippage could have been many, many%. And if you're trying to trade

many%. And if you're trying to trade tight with your with your stop loss, by the time you get executed, you're you're

in a world of pain because maybe it cost you 3% to get in and maybe you add the commissions on there, now it's a fed.

So, you're you're buying it. Now, you're

4% you're down 4%. So some people who trade a lot of options, you probably more used to that because you got the bigger spreads and everything in the option

world. So just kind of think through to

world. So just kind of think through to that. Like if you go in and you buy, I'm

that. Like if you go in and you buy, I'm not talking options that are super liquid, but go look at some more illlquid ones. And

that's kind of how it used to be with stocks. You go in and you want to buy it

stocks. You go in and you want to buy it and you buy it off of essentially what whatever the current offer price is.

That's you're silly. you want to go you want to put those limit orders in between, but that's a whole topic for another day. But um or probably not

another day. But um or probably not because we're not going to get into options, but that if you're trading options, you'll have a

better understanding of how it used to be um way way way back. So,

forget the mechanics and that all the nitty-gritty that I was going through.

It's more you've got money to put to work and the price is currently 5150 and now you're deciding where are you going to really be able to get done there and if you get done there and then

you want to turn around and sell it what are you going to get done on those shares. So that becomes a part of your

shares. So that becomes a part of your risk that most people don't even think about right now. But because that is diminished dramatically dramatically

like I cannot even express how different it is now versus back when I started let alone back in the 80s that the difference there is so small that people

do a lot of activity that they don't really want to do. I mean, if you want to do something in a big way in the market, you're willing to take that

slippage and total cost of 3 or 4%. Um,

at least back in the day, you would have been. Now, no, you're like, you don't

been. Now, no, you're like, you don't want to trade something if if you're going to buy it and then you turn around and sell it and you're down three or 4%.

Well, you do that enough times without being right or wrong on the stock, but just the transaction aspect of it. And it's you got to be doing

of it. And it's you got to be doing really well just to be maintaining even and um you know this how it was even

like in the '9s like I'm just telling you it was really it was really really hard to make forward progress over this. So you had to be on your game because of the

slippage and the commissions that were involved. I mean, I'll tell you like my

involved. I mean, I'll tell you like my commissions that told us on on other episodes and on IBD live when it first

started at the firm, Bill offered didn't offer forced forced there was no alternative forced us to trade through

his discount brokerage firm that was called the Stock Mart. And a lot of people who took the paper or took Daily Graphs would just trade through that and

and it was kind of a was a novelty. It

was trading through Bill's place. But

for us, I don't know what it was for the outside folks, but for us it was $28 a ticket plus a nickel a share. Meaning

you go in to do a transaction and that cost you $28 and then a nickel for every share. And then so whatever that was, it

share. And then so whatever that was, it was and and and you had to trade through them.

And that's part of your cost. The other

part was the slippage because back then you didn't trade in decimals. You would

trade in fractions. So there would be 51, 51 and a quarter, 51 12, 51 and 3/4.

So those were the the quarters, but then that you also they would also break it down into eights, you know, and or

eights and and they would get smaller in in in in some instruments, but for the most part it was in an eighth was was kind of the smallest normal normal

increment. they were they were smaller,

increment. they were they were smaller, but uh so you would you would break that up and and lots of times it would be like

51 by 51 and 5/8. So that that spread or that 60 what was 62 cents or whatever would be what would be normal like that

just normal. So that that cost on top of

just normal. So that that cost on top of it. So, your $28 a ticket or more

it. So, your $28 a ticket or more depending on what out where you were trading. That was a discount brokerage,

trading. That was a discount brokerage, right? Full service brokerage was maybe

right? Full service brokerage was maybe $2 $300 or more um for one one trade.

And then you again then the nickel share. So if you're trading a lot of

share. So if you're trading a lot of shares that that that would add up. And

for the first few years I was I was trading there because when until we were allowed to trade trade away meaning trade through um other places. We went

to TDM trade and I think I had some Erade in there which was like 7.9. I was

so happy to only pay 7.95 a trade. Um,

and anyways, I was paying Bill through his stock mark my salary and sometimes more in a year just to trade through it.

And so you had to, and I've talked about this, you my 1999 um case that got me noticed by him, I was up 1640%.

But that without options uh and that was with this. So imagine you had the exact

with this. So imagine you had the exact same trades but with no commission what that would have been. So it's totally different now. So if you're you're

different now. So if you're you're looking at the market now you're you're learn if you're learning now you're learning at the best time ever. You've

got all this transparency meaning real time news that's free back in the day.

Like if you're going to get news you're going to get it delayed by a day. Maybe

you read in the newspaper the next day or you had a wire service or something that you had access to. But it it was just getting news or even real-time

quotes. That was that was really that

quotes. That was that was really that was really hard. Things are you know times have changed and you got to remember like when when times change there's these

things that end up changing along with it that sometimes are positive, sometimes are negative. You always want to look out for negative unintended consequences. a great example of that,

consequences. a great example of that, and this isn't a tangent. This is an off topic, it's just something that we were going to talk about in in a future

episode. We might talk about it later

episode. We might talk about it later today, but the regulation FD or regulation, what was it? fair disclosure

or fair whatever FD whenever that came about that changed everything and it changed the volume in a very material way and it was there were more negative

unintended consequences to that regulation out of DC than anything else I can think of. Um, so what was that and how does it how did it impact and you

can Google the years and and the the the details on on that that what happened is way back when there was all this inside information that people would trade off

of. I've never in my life traded off the

of. I've never in my life traded off the inside information. I never saw Bill or

inside information. I never saw Bill or or really anybody. I know stories of people that

anybody. I know stories of people that I'm aware of that traded off inside information, but never anyone in my circle of friends or or anyone because

that's just a big no no. Like why why would you do that? Like risk going to jail and stuff for freaking money? Like

what are you like smoking? Like what am I Martha or something? No, I don't even remember what happened with her but uh I think she's cool but I don't but I don't remember. Maybe she did something really

remember. Maybe she did something really uncool, but I know she was in jail for something. I think Nancy went to go

something. I think Nancy went to go visit her there.

All right, so I'm going to get myself in trouble. Okay, so where was it going

trouble. Okay, so where was it going with that? Reg FD. So what had happened

with that? Reg FD. So what had happened is back in the day there was all this information leakage was that'll be the

nicest way to call inside information.

And these big companies would talk to the the investor relations or the CFOs of these big companies would end up

talking to their uh who whoever the person was at a big fund family. And I

don't want to name any fund families that names, but they they all did it.

Hedge funds, mutual funds that they would talk to them before the earnings and be like, "Oh, this is how the quarter is going and you know, we think we're going to hit it or uh or we're

going to miss the numbers, you know, wink and a nod type of thing." And so if you study things historically, you didn't see gaps. There weren't gaps during earnings. Very rarely was there a

during earnings. Very rarely was there a gap because everyone already knew it was built into the price and that was kind of the basis of technical analysis. It

was into the price. And Bill would always say that if there was a gap down, he would say, "Well, it's in the chart because all the information was there because all the players that really

counted from a dollar standpoint knew that information, right? So, they had that. Let's say you're at a big mutual

that. Let's say you're at a big mutual fund company and you're in Cisco back in the day and you're like, "Oh man, you're up to your eyeballs in the stock and and

it's Charlie's acting a little funny."

And so you call up the CFO over there at well, I don't even want to say Cisco because then that implies they did something wrong, but XYZ I can't even do

XYZ Corp now. Whatever. One 123 Corp.

Lotus 123 Corp. So, uh, this random company you're in, you've got size. It's

coming into earnings and you're a little nervous, uh, because some of the competitors aren't doing well. And so,

you call up the the company and get a feel for things. And then you you walk away with, yeah, you know, you should re you should reduce it because whatever

something the the environment is soft for their product. So then you you're reducing that and it shows up in the chart. So then when the earnings come

chart. So then when the earnings come out, there's not this big surprise because everyone who had any size to sell, they had already reduced it ahead of time. And so that's where you would

of time. And so that's where you would had a weak chart going into an earnings announcement. So there wouldn't be this

announcement. So there wouldn't be this big shock in price. Same thing on the way on the upside. If you called up and they're like, "Oh no, that's we're gaining share from those from those

people. Well, the reason why they're

people. Well, the reason why they're down is because we're eating their lunch and we're doing really well. So then

they go in and buy that that stock and sell off more of the other ones if they have positions in it. And so those go down further and this one goes up. So

then when the earnings finally come out, well, it doesn't really move much because that was already into the price.

That's how the market really used to work. Really, it did. go back and study

work. Really, it did. go back and study things and and study the gaps pre-reg versus postreg night and freaking day, man. Like, it

could not be more different collectively. Yes, don't send me in and

collectively. Yes, don't send me in and find some gap in 1963 on some stock, you know, some random news or something, but I'm talking in general. And and the earnings would come out throughout the

day. It wasn't all this pre-market or

day. It wasn't all this pre-market or postmarket, but throughout the day, the earnings would be released. And that

changed that that was a change as well that that impacted things and had these more these gaps. So the regulation FD what happened is the government said and

the government almost always has good intentions whether you're left or right for the most part they have good intentions and no one's you know sitting there going I'm going to put this thing and I'm going to mess with everybody.

No, they're like, "Everyone should have all the information at the same time because the little guy is not getting the same information as this big mutual fund outfit." Well, that's true. Unless

fund outfit." Well, that's true. Unless

you know how to recharge because then it was always in there. I never called a company and talked to the well, back in the day, we had to call some companies.

Bill had us do that, but never never even received any inside information um from a company. I had been told some stuff that was questionable by some

people at times and I did not trade that stock and I told them you need to go tell your source that that need that information needs to go public now and it was very clear because you don't want

any part of inside information ever and you just don't even if I knew someone who who worked at a company um I wouldn't even trade that company because I just didn't want and you know let's

say I got really lucky and bought had a big position position and then the next day it got bought out or something. I

didn't want someone looking at me going, "Oh, well, he knew because his best friend works at fill-in- thelank company." I So, I just And Bill was the

company." I So, I just And Bill was the same way. He just kept things super

same way. He just kept things super clean. And so, it was great having that

clean. And so, it was great having that environment. But the reality is that's

environment. But the reality is that's not how the market worked. The market,

everyone was knew what was in there because they were getting the information except for the little guy or girl. and they would end up getting hurt

girl. and they would end up getting hurt because they wouldn't have this information. So the government was like

information. So the government was like all the information has to be released at the same time. That sounds really good. But now you have this jolt that

good. But now you have this jolt that happens four times a year to a stock where you get the most volatility and the most volume on this one day each

quarter when those earnings are released because now everyone is getting that information at the exact same time immediately.

it's that stock is getting pushed up to a certain level or brought down to a certain level based on the new information that everyone is getting. So

now there's all this additional risk four times a year that hurts people and certainly hurts the little guy more and girl more than the big outfit because

the big outfit they're really diversified and so you know one of their bigger positions gaps down or something.

Yeah, that's not going to feel too good, but they're going to be fine because they've got hundreds or even thousands of other stocks. Well, the the average person is going to have a much more

concentrated portfolio and that could have a really big impact on you. A 20%

gap down or or more on a stock if you're concentrated that that really really hurts. And that's kind of normal these

hurts. And that's kind of normal these days in this postreg world. So with that you

world. So with that you you have all this volume and volatility that happens these four times a year that ends up becoming a big part of this

dirty volume. That's a a huge huge huge

dirty volume. That's a a huge huge huge part because that involves the option market and and other things. But we will we will end up talking about all these during this series. I don't think

anyone's going to watch this because this is it's probably confusing. That's

why I've held off on doing this for a year because it it is confusing. So,

let's kind of summarize where we are right now to kind of make sure that we're we're on the same page. What we're

trying to explain right now is how volume is confirmation of the price. So,

the price goes up, you should have that volume that confirms it. Price goes

down, you should have that volume that confirms it that it's bad action. If you

go up on light volume, in theory, there's not demand there. So, watch out.

It's not good. Well, that's true. 20,

30, 40, 50 years ago. Very true. Stock

is coming down, but it's on light volume. Oh, there's no one really

volume. Oh, there's no one really selling. It's okay. Just let it go down.

selling. It's okay. Just let it go down.

It's on light volume. Again, back in the day, yes. Now, not the case. not

day, yes. Now, not the case. not

necessarily the case because you don't know how much of the volume is being done somewhere else um or was already done. There's so many other

already done. There's so many other things that we're going to get into, but the REGG FD ends up that's probably a good good one for us to explain today because we're in almost an hour and

really haven't gotten anywhere and this is going to be a lot of these because this is a big topic but people have asked for it. I have

explained it's going to be tricky. Uh

so I don't want to hear one negative review. If I hear a negative review

review. If I hear a negative review until this whole series is done, man, I just want wish you someone giving you a negative review at something in your life when you're not done because that wouldn't be cool. Now, if you don't want

to watch or you have something negative to say, you could be yourself. Remember

what your mother said. So

let's just tackle the the earnings since we were on that the rag FT. So now

versus back in the day. Back in the day as the quarter is winding down and the CFO has a has a handle on where things

are. They're trying to give info out to

are. They're trying to give info out to their big we'll just call clients. Well,

not really clients, but owners or potential owners. So the the mutual

potential owners. So the the mutual funds and hedge funds. So they're giving out that information. Now they're going to give out the bad information as well because they don't they want to have

credibility so the company or the portfolio managers can will trust them in the future because they're playing the long game. They're not worried about this one quarter. They're worried about the next 5 10 15 20 years of this

relationship with these outfits. So

they're going to give them real information and if not that's where you would have gotten the gaffound back in the day. And then the same thing on for

the day. And then the same thing on for positive information and they're getting that information out there. And so

that's what the chart bases were formed by these the old saying and someone at the firm used to say it and I think a client had said hey you know they were

not a technical analyst. They were big fund manager with a with a big ego is is how I I interpret this and you'll get that in a second. and one of our sales

folks or one of our folks were trying to talk to them about uh chart patterns and hey you should look at the cup with handle blah blah blah and it means this

and he goes charts those are my footprints and when I first heard that I thought

wow what an ego that guy has and then I thought about it yeah he's exactly right those are his footprints because a big mutual fun outfit it. They don't they're

not in and out. They're not swinging trading. They're not position trading.

trading. They're not position trading.

They are holding things. They've got low turnover. Look at the turnover. And and

turnover. Look at the turnover. And and

most mutual funds very very low, very little activity. It's all done on on the

little activity. It's all done on on the margin just by dialing things up and dialing things back a little bit. And

that's we talked about it in the last episode of the closet indexing and all all of that and all is all goes together. So with

together. So with with this they are making their tracks and that's what you're you're seeing and that's what a chart pattern is. A big

cup, a big double bottom, a big saucer, a big whatever, you know, beautiful high tie flag. That is the footprint of big

tie flag. That is the footprint of big portfolio managers who can't hide their buying or their selling because they're doing it over months or even quarters of

getting in and out of these stocks and that marginal buying or selling pressure moves that stock and that typically they have because I remember you know with a

when we were dealing you know because I dealt with institutional clients for you know 20 years that they were uh luckily I didn't have to talk to a lot of them

on a regular basis but when I did I would always you know ask good qu what I thought were good questions of trying to understand what it was like to be on

that side of things from a mutual fund standpoint and lots of them would say okay I'm not going to buy buy or sell

more than x% of the average volume in any given day and I think Warren Buffett even said that too with Birkshshire that I don't think they would do more than either five or 10% of the volume on any

given day. So that means getting in or

given day. So that means getting in or getting out would take them weeks or months, you know, or quarters to do that because you don't want to have this big

volume showing up because it would that that whole thing that we were talking about at the beginning that I know that we took a lot of time on that on that bid ask thing that probably confused a lot of people

that you do that every day and you're trying to build a big position. and

you're trying to buy hundreds of thousands of shares that that's going to move things. It's

going to move things around and then people are going to see the net buying or the net selling from people and that's what creates the patterns. So

that's the way it was historically. So

you'd see this beautiful action and the cup would look a certain way and then they'd break out and then the news would happen two or 3 weeks later after the fact or the stock would start breaking down and chart would look terrible and

you'd be looking for news and there'd be no news around but 3 months later you'd find out why everyone was selling it.

That happened with Enron. I brought up Enron earlier. We had that on the Nesmi

Enron earlier. We had that on the Nesmi list near the end before it ruled over because the fundamentals looked great because they were all made up. If you

don't know what Enron is, there's nothing wrong with that. Just go Google it and and see. Anyone who's been around the block for a while remembers it. But

if you're newer, you don't know. But it

was a big fraud. And we had it on the list. Everything looked good, but the

list. Everything looked good, but the chart started looking funny. And so we we removed it. I don't remember if it was Bill's idea to remove it or mine or or or how it how it came off. It was

just a nothing thought. It was like, "Oh, stock isn't acting right. Just

remove it." It wasn't like, "Oh, we think there's fraud." And then later on, you ended up finding out all all the problems. And that's because the people

who knew really understood what was going on and they were they were uh they were selling it. They weren't saying, "Oh, there's this fraud here. Everyone

get out before we do." They were they were looking out for themselves and they they were getting out, which I don't know how ethical or legal that is, but that's just what they were doing. But we

were just interpreting the chart, not any inside information. We were just looking at the chart and say, "Okay, it's rolling removed. It didn't think twice about it." And then when it fell apart, it's like, "Oh yeah, we used to have that on the list." And then we'd

look at it and Bill would always talk about it with people because it's pretty cool. But it's just a cool example of

cool. But it's just a cool example of how charts help you. Um, and looking at the fundamentals, fundamentals are something to a reason

to buy, but not necessarily reason to sell. If you wait for the fundamentals

sell. If you wait for the fundamentals to tell you to sell, you're going to be selling way way way. But, okay, so now we know how it used to be. It was all in

the price. And then, well, why would a

the price. And then, well, why would a stock go up or down? whether the stock would go up or down because of the general trend of the earnings and sales and return on equity and margins and all

the the other stuff in there what the group is doing. But you wouldn't have these big four times a year would be kind of a pseudon event that is going in

you're going into earnings. you're like

hoping for some little bit of a surprise or a little bit more color on something, but not like it is now where it's like a big It's like if you've ever gone to Vegas and you, you know, roll the dice.

That's what it is. Going into every earnings, you have no edge. Not

whatsoever. You think you have an edge, you're full of it. Go test that edge in a big sample size. You have no edge.

Well, no edge that I'm aware of.

There might be an edge out there. So, I

want to back away from that statement.

There might be an edge out there, and it's on my to-do list to try to figure out, and I'll just tell you now, what I'm going to do is just do it old school. And just like what Bill said in

school. And just like what Bill said in the book, The Fish Story. If you don't know the fish story, it's my it's a basis for all of the the way I approach research, and it's in Bill's book, How

to Make Money in Stocks. And just a paragraph or so, and and I've told it on other episodes, but it's important. It's

wasn't one of Bill's stories, a story that Bill told, but it's an old story and I'm just going to summarize it that there was a Harvard professor. He tells

his teach his students, they write me a story about fish. So, they all go to the library and everything and they write these beautiful books, not books, but

multiple pages on on I'm embellishing, but it's fun. All this great stuff on on fish. Maybe today they would use AI and

fish. Maybe today they would use AI and have Brock or Chat GPT or whatever write this plagiarized story for them. And

they turned it into the the professor.

And what did he do? Well, if you know the story, you know what he did? He

threw that in the trash. He said, "This is so important. If you want to know about fish, just sit in front of a fish tank and look at fish,

right?"

right?" Oh my god, that's so powerful.

Think about it. If you want to know about fish, just sit in front of a fish tank and study fish. And so that's what these kids did. And then they wrote these stories on their original

observations. And that's what I do. And

observations. And that's what I do. And

I saw Bill do that. And if you bin back to him with his PE work that that's we'll have to circle back to that in a second, but that's where that whole

thing came from from looking at the fish tank. And that's what I've done. I mean,

tank. And that's what I've done. I mean,

I've sat and studied charts for my adult life, like I've said uh other episodes, like 5,000 charts a day minimum, like on a slow day. That's what I what I do. And

I've always done that. I mean to the point where early on maybe 25 years ago what they we used to have people who

were trying to steal data from us. So

they would uh kind of scrape our database on the institutional side and they would go in and just pull chart after chart after chart and then read all that information and put it in their

database and then cancel their their accounts with us and then they would have all of our data and the data is was extremely valuable back then because

it was very clean. I mean, I was in the research department putting that clean data and there is 30 40 of us that Bill employed to scrub this data and keep

clean data. That's why I'm kind of a

clean data. That's why I'm kind of a clean data freak that it wasn't we weren't just buying the data from some provider. We were doing it ourselves. We

provider. We were doing it ourselves. We

were I was getting the press releases from the the wire monitor would there was a wire room and they would have this paper that was just constantly going and they would just rip it off and then they

would bring it over to your desk and that would be the earnings for Apple and then you would have to read it, go through it, back out any charges, look through all the footnotes and all

that stuff and put that data in the database and it was very expensive and very timeconuming. thing and Bill was

very timeconuming. thing and Bill was paying for that. And so it wasn't cool that people were just stealing from us.

I mean, it was kind of like the Napster thing back in the day, but magnified.

What they would do to see if anyone was stealing data from us is they would just have a counter on how many charts I pulled up. And if anyone pulled up more

pulled up. And if anyone pulled up more charts than me, then it was a computer doing it because no one could pull. It's just what I've always done. And so that was me looking

always done. And so that was me looking at the fish tank. And if you didn't watch the last episode, episode 56, my Sundays, uh any given Sunday with Bill,

I would highly recommend uh watching that. Uh

really I was worried about it when I was recording it, like I'm worried about this one, but in the end, I think it was um really good and I I would go back and

watch it. So, we were um going through

watch it. So, we were um going through the the two different examples, right?

I'm sorry, my my mind is in on a million things and I've got a million work things on on on top of that that I'm, you know, I'm working on. We're I'm

redesigning pattern rack, the growth 250, all the ratings of work and plus normal work. And I, man, I am I am maxed

normal work. And I, man, I am I am maxed out like maxed out. I I my brain hasn't been at full capacity like this in a

long long time, over a decade. And so,

sorry if I'm I'm a little bit all over the place, but I'm trying to help out. I

really am. Uh,

so we were talking about historically, right?

Oh, going into earnings, right? Is that

what we were talking about?

No, dude. Speak up.

dude. Speak up.

I'm asking you a question.

That's very rude of you to not answer.

I'm having fun. Just trying to keep you awake. All right. So, I where I think we

awake. All right. So, I where I think we were is going into an earnings announcement now. So, back in the day,

announcement now. So, back in the day, it was all the information was out there was already in the price and the whole the footprint of the the institutional

clients or anyone with solid money.

They're moving the chart around. Right

now we're in this postreg world where an earnings comes comes out and four times a year obviously right or well not in all cases you get some foreign stocks

that only report twice a year but we're just talking about normal USbased stocks four times a year you get this information that comes out and nobody

knows the information and so now you're you're going in there and everyone instant instantaneously gets this information at the same time.

So all the PMs are like, "Okay, I was estimating that the sales were going to be 20% up, but they came in at 25%."

Okay, so they put that number in there or it's put in there automatically for them. Then um margins, oh, we thought

them. Then um margins, oh, we thought they were going to be 13%, but they're only 10%. Okay. And then earnings were

only 10%. Okay. And then earnings were this. And you know, they've got all the

this. And you know, they've got all the information in there and in their spreadsheet, they look at the value and they go, "Okay, well, going into the earnings, the stock was

trading at 5150, but now with this information, and we thought it was worth 60 bucks, but now with this information, our projection is

that it's worth 75 bucks." So that they immediately go in there and they're they're going to buy as many shares up to $70 because they they don't want to pay 75 if they think it's worth it. So

then there's automatically jumps up to 70, right? It just instantaneously and

70, right? It just instantaneously and just think about it next time you would look at earnings just go how quickly that that stock moves up to this level and just kind of stays there in most

cases, not all cases, right? Because the

information gets changes as people listen to the conference call and there's your question and answer and you're getting more color on there. your

initial move typically it's almost instantaneous because people big gap up or big gap down you know at after hours or pre pre-market because everyone has

put this information in the spreadsheet in the the powers of be the people that have the deep pockets they now are willing to either pay up or they want to

get out and so all this activity happens at the same time that's just a lot of volume happening how is that Clean volume.

How is that clean volume? Explain it to me.

It is reaction to this four time four times a year adjustment. It's all coming at the same time. It's artificial

because and this isn't why volume is dirty. This is one of the many many many

dirty. This is one of the many many many reasons, but I'm just going to go through this example. So four times a year you get this reassessment of value because of the information that came out

from the company. And now people have figured out okay now instead of 5150 they want to pay the they want to pay up to $70 for the stock or they want to they want to sell it all the way down to

40 but they don't want to sell lower than 40 because then they think they're getting bad bad prices. So they they immediately just hit all the bids down

to 40 and then they offer it out at 40 and and $40. And so if anyone wants to buy to them for 40, they're they're doing it there. Or same thing in

reverse, they buy all the shares up to 70 and then they sit on the bid at 70 and anyone who wants to sell shares to them, they get sold to them. So that's

the reality of what happens is watch any earnings announcement that happens. Now,

along the way, sometimes that'll go along with something on a chart pattern that is going through a trend line on the way up or the way down. And so, then there'll be technical buying or selling

or it's going through a stop level, buy stop or sell stop level that is um well, you wouldn't have buy or sell stops in the after hours of

pre-market, but the mental one of like, okay, if the stock ever gets through 60 bucks, I'm buying it. or if it ever falls through 45 bucks, I'm selling it no matter what. You know, there they're these levels that are riskmanagement

levels. But what I'm talking about is

levels. But what I'm talking about is what what did the fundamentals do? So

four times a year, you get this movement. So all the bulk of the move is

movement. So all the bulk of the move is happening kind of instantaneously four times a year. So that is created so much more risk in the market, especially for

the little guy or girl. Um, even though DC and I don't even know if it it was Dems that wanted it or Republicans that wanted it, it doesn't matter, the thought process behind it was was

logical. Um, but they didn't think about

logical. Um, but they didn't think about the unintended consequences and and DC never does. They just do what sounds

never does. They just do what sounds good for the for the most part. I don't

want to be negative on them, but you know, it is DC after all. Uh, both

sides. Both sides. Um, not all of them, but most of them. And it's a topic that we're not going to talk about. We're not

going to talk politics here. But as it impacts the market, we will. So they

have this good intention. So now you have this thing that four times a year you get this big movement. Okay. So is

that volume really real? Well, it's real because it's traded through there. But

then you've got a lot of people who are in there who are where the movement happens. And so you've got high

happens. And so you've got high frequency trading. You've got ALOS who

frequency trading. You've got ALOS who they're not caught off guard that there's going to be this big movement.

So, they're in there trying to frontun the not front run in an illegal way, but get in front of all these buys or sells

as the big funds are in there going in there trying to buy it. So, you've got all of that activity. And why are they doing that? Because they can, right?

doing that? Because they can, right?

because the the commissions are not are are the after hours and the pre-markets a little bit trickier because of the the way the orders work then are kind of

more like in the back in the day where you've got the big the relatively big spreads compared to the trading hour normal trading hours and everything. But

so you've got all of that volume that is going on and you've got all those people that are trying to jump in front of it.

And then because commissions are are free during the normal trading hours when the the on an earnings day, you typically get tight spreads, not not in

post or pre-market, but during the trading day because you've got all this volume and with the volume, you get more market makers and pseudo market makers who want to go in between the spreads.

So the more people going in between the spread, the closer that spread is. So

when we were talking before of like a quarter spread by like 51 and a quarter

bid by 5150 ask that now that might be 5149 by 5150 or it might be 5149.1

um by you know a little bit less than 5150. So 51 um uh 49.9.

5150. So 51 um uh 49.9.

So people are jumping in in fractions of a penny and that's a whole different topic. So people just trying to be the

topic. So people just trying to be the inside bid inside ask and they're just trying to make the the difference um there. So you've got all this volume

there. So you've got all this volume there that is people just jumping in trying to make the difference. Is that

buying demand?

No, it's not buying demand. So that

volume, how do you back that volume out to get clean data? The the person who really wanted to buy those 10,000 shares, how do you figure out if that person was going in there and then

wanted to buy 10,000 shares, but ultimately because of all this market activity, it translated to by the time that person was done, you know, another

50,000 shares were traded. Well, how

much of that was someone else with another 10,000 shares or how much of it was just the market mechanics around that that order of people just jumping

in front of and trying to make these fractions of a of a penny sometimes in spread because they can because it's cheap. Back in the day, you couldn't do

cheap. Back in the day, you couldn't do that cuz one, it wasn't by decimals. You

didn't have the pre-market and the postmarket the way we do now. you didn't

have the individual options like we do now, which is something we're going to talk about in a second. So, it was during market hours and it was real buying, real selling pressure and you

didn't get these gaps that were magnifying the problem. So, now four times a year, the stock goes up a lot or goes down a lot and then doodles around

until the next earnings and then goes up or down a lot and so on. and the really nice traders don't trade big on those earnings so much and it it's more

predictable and those are just harder to find. So

to find. So we should get into the option thing because the option thing is a is is a big part of this thing. So now you had all these players out there going okay

well four times a year you get these big moves that happen. How can I go in and reduce my risk in there? And we'll we're

getting to the tail end of today's volume one of this dirty volume thing.

There's so many dude. This would be like a week long.

My I'm really I know I'm I probably sound like I'm all over the place because it's there's so many fringe topics I'm trying to like not get into because then they're their own tangents.

But let's just deal with a little bit of the options up first. So now I've got a lot of friends that I've met who are really really good with options. They've

got deep knowledge on options. So

they'll understand this to a level that I just don't because I've never spent the time to really get to that deep level. But let's just think about it

level. But let's just think about it this way.

you're you've got 100,000 shares in Microsoft and they're going to be reporting and you're a fund and you're going, "Oh man, you think the last eight

out of the last eight quarters it tended to move 10% up or down or I mean that's a whole separate topic that get get really

detailed but so let let's just broadly say okay well it can go up or down 10% sand and I just don't feel comfortable with that with the risk in my account.

So, I'm going to hedge a lot of this.

So, that the worst case scenario and they bought out with different strikes and everything that they're going to buy in the option market in a way to protect themselves to a certain extent, right?

So, they're paying something for that, right? Because of the whole volatility

right? Because of the whole volatility crush and all that stuff that we're not going to get into. and they're they're putting buying pressure on the option market because they're going into this

risk event and they want to reduce their risk. Very smart. So, they want to

risk. Very smart. So, they want to reduce their risk going into it. So,

they're in the option market. Or maybe

they're like, I'm going to reduce my 100,000 shares down to 50,000 shares, but I still want that upside, but with limited downside. So, they're

going to go into the option market and and kind of do a an artificial 50,000 shares like to get the deltas right to to get them to the the right and

factoring in what's going to happen to the volatility implied volatility post earnings and all of that stuff which all these moving parts each thing each of the things I'm talking about have a lot

of moving parts and then you get the the what's been really popular lately for folks to focus on and really happened with like the GameStop stop and what was it? AMC and there were probably some

it? AMC and there were probably some others of these mean stocks with people buying, you know, options really far out of the market and then the market makers happen to go into the market to offset

the risk that they're taking. Well, we

might as well get into that a little bit. So, this is where it gets

bit. So, this is where it gets complicated. You've got 100,000 shares

complicated. You've got 100,000 shares of Microsoft going into earnings. You

want to reduce that down to 50,000 shares of just pure equity. and you're

going to let that ride, but you still want your 50,000 share type of upside, but with less downside. So, you go in and you you figure out, and we're not

going to get into that, you figure out the option contracts that you want, a combination of different ones that that

you want to get to. Um,

a uh hold on a second. Getting a Sorry, I was having to deal with something. So,

circling back to this, so you've got your 50,000 shares that you're just sitting with, and then you've got another 50,000 shares kind of synthetic

through the option uh through various uh options that um that you're buying because you still want that upside, but you want uh you want to maintain the the

risk on the on the downside because even though you thought that it historically it's moved around 10% on earnings, you don't Oh, this could be that one that

moves down 20 or 25%.

And so you want to reduce your risk and and have some of it at a known quantity. Now maybe

um you want to sell your whole 100,000 shares and just do everything as an options. Yeah, that may or maybe you

options. Yeah, that may or maybe you keep the whole 100,000 shares and then you buy um you you still go into the option market to just hedge yourself. So

all sorts of ways of of accomplishing this. So that's you. Now there's someone

this. So that's you. Now there's someone on the other side of every trade. So

you're in there and you're buying, let's say you're buying a bunch of puts on there, but you're really bullish. You're

just buying those puts for protection.

And so someone might look at the all this put activity in Microsoft and think that it's negative, but really you're just mitigating the risk, but they're

reading into that a certain way and they're like, "Wow, look at all this unusual option activity." Well, it could just be really someone wants to dial back their risk and they really think

it's going higher, but they're buying these puts to just protect their down downside. Or maybe you could flip that

downside. Or maybe you could flip that around. They're buying some way out of

around. They're buying some way out of the money calls because they think, "Oh, this might be the quarter where they go.

It gaps up 25% and they want a little extra juice if they're going to hold their 100 shares going into this." So,

they're out there either buying a bunch of puts or buying a bunch of calls or maybe doing a little bit of both.

Now, the person on the other end of that trade, the option trade, well, they're the market maker typically and they unless you find someone who just wants a opposite side and you're but let's just

say it's the market maker and they're now they've sold you this contract, this put or this call. They want to mitigate

uh mitigate their risk. So then they go in and they buy an offsetting amount of shares or sell an offsetting amount of

shares to neutralize that option risk that they are taking by selling you those contracts, the puts or calls.

So really you just had 100,000 shares.

you're just sitting in Microsoft and back in the day you would have just sat through those 100,000 shares or maybe you would have had 200,000 shares because you didn't have this risk four times a year and you would have felt

more comfortable with a more concentrated um account. I can tell you this now like

um account. I can tell you this now like if Bill would have not retired when he did eventually he would have come around to the reg. Now he did not agree with me

on regggd at all at all at all. Um, and

he thought it was still in the price.

And I'll tell you, I'll just tell you this. Well, shoot. I got to finish this

this. Well, shoot. I got to finish this first and then I'll tell that story. Uh,

I am jotting that down. Remind me.

Twitter, Facebook, um, story. So,

uh, the 100,000 shares back in the day, they would just be holding those shares or maybe 150 or 200,000 shares and it would have been real because they wouldn't been thinking four times a year

this event is going to happen where you're going to have this um all this volatility that happens. And sometimes

it's a non-event and it just stays the same. But most of the time, you know,

same. But most of the time, you know, you get movement is very very abnormal to not have movement on an earnings day.

Um, back in history was very normal to just have a little bit of movement or not no movement, but now this is big risk event, right? It's kind of like a

an election or something. This big thing is unknown. You're going into it this

is unknown. You're going into it this big crapshoot. So back then you would

big crapshoot. So back then you would had real shares traded and I'm talking before there was even an option market for individual stocks but now because

they can go in with the um and we're not even talking inverse ETFs and you know individual stock ETFs that that are leveraged and inverse and all that

stuff. We're just talking options right

stuff. We're just talking options right now. So now they've gone out into this

now. So now they've gone out into this option market and bought their production or or got their juice for for some extra

movement and the market makers have had to go in there and hedge their accounts.

So all that volume that happened going into this earnings just so people could mitigate their risk because of the reggg fd

well is that buying or selling pressure?

Is that confirming activity or is just nonsense?

Complete and utter nonsense. It's it's

shares that are showing up on the tape because someone is trying to reduce their risk. They don't have any buying

their risk. They don't have any buying or selling uh that they're really doing. They're

just trying to mitigate the risk in a big way. Okay, I'm not talking about the

big way. Okay, I'm not talking about the mom or the pop, your aunt Sally down the street as Bill would always say, who's buying, you know, one lot of something or, you know, uh, one option contract.

I'm talking size that they're doing this in or collectively. So, it doesn't have to be one guy or girl with 100,000 shares. It could be you know uh

shares. It could be you know uh 500 people with with smaller but collectively this is this is all um this

is all happening for this risk event.

Now the risk event happens earnings come out the volatility of those options go because that risk event is now gone. So

that's not in there. So that price goes down dramatically very very quickly and so now those options are priced differently. So everyone that's changing

differently. So everyone that's changing everything and and people are adjusting their positions their either their option contracts reducing those

eliminating those and then that comes with it its own activity in the market as those market makers are adjusting to

neutralize their risk with that and all for what because REGG FD came in there and it ended up creating this risk environment that people needed to adjust

their risk for. And you get all this volume that is just natural that is going to happen with all this stuff. And

then you have people who were just waiting because they're like, you know what, I've got 100,000 shares here as long as it doesn't gap down 10% or more.

I'm just going to increase it. You want

to increase it to 150,000 shares, but they don't want to do it before the earnings. They want to wait until that's

earnings. They want to wait until that's behind them and then they that order is out there. So they've got that activity.

out there. So they've got that activity.

We're not even talking about the natural buyers who weren't even in there now that good earnings came out and then they want those. We're not talking about those shares. Those are the real shares.

those shares. Those are the real shares.

That's the volume that you really want to track. We're just talking about this

to track. We're just talking about this risk mitigating volume that it's there.

And what percent of the volume would you say is that?

I don't know. I have no clue. Nor do

you. There's no way to calculate it with any level of true certainty that I'm aware of because you would have to know things that are unknowable of really

what is the intent of that person who's buying those contracts. Are they trying to increase their risk? They're buying a bunch of out- of the money calls and they're just taking a crapshoot on that

or they're buying a bunch of, you know, puts that are out of the money or they're selling a bunch or they're selling a bunch of calls. you don't know what their true intent is. They don't

say, "Hey, I'm bullish on on this order.

They're just putting that order out there." But back in the day, before all

there." But back in the day, before all this pre-market, postmarket, option market, not even talking about overseas and

leverage ETFs, high frequency trading, no commissions, little slippage. They were just buying

little slippage. They were just buying those shares back in the day. Now you

got all these moving parts in there and they're trying to reduce their risk and so that you get all this volume that blasts in there on any given earnings

day and go try to find a stock that does have big volume on earnings days and it cracks me up. corrects me. The veteran

traders, some my friends who will go and your stock is up 10% on earnings, of course, is going to have a bunch of volume because of what we were talking about. And they're like, "Well, look at

about. And they're like, "Well, look at that volume confirmation." Well, find a freaking earnings that doesn't earnings day that doesn't have a lot of volume.

like, yeah, you're gonna find a couple here or there. But I'm talking like really on on on big important companies over an amount of time. You're just not

going to find it. It's just not there.

Um because there all this volatility because of the market mechanics that that happen around it. So how is that real? And the same thing would happen on

real? And the same thing would happen on the way down because now let's say the stock gap's down 20%. Well, you're going to get this pickup in volume, right?

that happens because people are closing out their the known risk event is now known, right? You know, let me restate

known, right? You know, let me restate that. The unknown is now known. The risk

that. The unknown is now known. The risk

the date of the risk event was known. It

wasn't um like something that can happen with a like a biotech that you don't know when the when they might get FDA approval or some random news that just

comes and just gaps it up or gaps it down or some other really random news event. This is a known thing every year.

event. This is a known thing every year.

Okay, it's going to be released on this date for this quarter and the other data on the next quarter and it's you can plan for it. So that's now gone and

they've unwinding those trades. The

market makers are unwinding those trades and so you get all this volume that is now in there. But on top of that, you get real trading. People are like, "Oh, wow. This stock is breaking down. I want

wow. This stock is breaking down. I want

to sell those shares. I didn't do any hedging, but now I want to get out of the or I wasn't even in the stock. Now

it's up 10% on on great numbers really like it. Or people that aren't wired the

like it. Or people that aren't wired the way we are where something's gapped down 10% and they like it. Like they're

people who love to buy in the dirt and they're like, well, it's down 10% but it's finding this level of support over here and and they're comfortable just buying it there and maybe letting it go against them for a week or two. And

there's people that are very comfortable with that. I'm not, but I understand

with that. I'm not, but I understand that there's most people in there. So,

you don't know what that real buying or selling pressure is in that volume. And

so, these people just boggles my freaking mind. These professional smart

freaking mind. These professional smart people who just are paring what everyone has always said because you can't they won't think outside the box. Just look

at any chart and look at those earnings.

the volume. Let me just share I'll just share a um couple charts. Let's do that because

couple charts. Let's do that because maybe this will be a little bit easier to get.

Let's let's just look at um look uh really liquid or let's just look

at some liquid names here.

And this is a spring there's a very generic spring of um no closed end funds or ETFs that that trade a lot. And let's just

look at the most the most liquid here.

This is Nvidia. All right. Doesn't get more

Nvidia. All right. Doesn't get more liquid than that. And let's let's put this volume over here. So,

look at that volume spike that you've got there. You got a volume spike there.

got there. You got a volume spike there.

You've got a volume spike there. Well,

maybe you're not familiar with our our charts. Let me turn off some of these

charts. Let me turn off some of these corporate events. Okay. So this date

corporate events. Okay. So this date here, that's when the earnings came out.

That that little EPS flag there, that's when the earnings came out. This little

flag, that's when the earnings came out.

That That's where the earnings came out.

Let's Let's look at some other Let's look at some that are are liquid, but not as liquid. Let's go

down to like a Let's go to hood. Why not?

Okay. So, you've got uh I'm trying to see which one will magnify a little bit more. Okay. Let's

just do it here. So, this I think that was a day that was added to the um uh the S&P 500 if I'm not mistaken, but uh don't quote me on that. You could look

at the earnings, but from memory it was.

But look at all that buying demand.

202 million shares, 346% above above volume. Do you see in there the little volume thing? So from the top of that little track price, you got the

date, the the price information, then the volume, and then the volume percent.

That the volume percent is how we like to look at volume versus average. So, if

it was the the same as the 50-day average, which is this little red line down here, that's your 50-day average of shares, then it would show up as exactly

there, and it would be a zero volume rate, just like this day here. It's at a minus one. So, that's essentially as

minus one. So, that's essentially as close to zero as possible because it's right at that right at that line. And

I'm just toggling back and forth between the arithmetic volume and the and the log volume because the scaling is kind of tricky to see. But let's let's just

go back. We'll do it with the log. So on

go back. We'll do it with the log. So on

this day, you had a pick up an earnings.

Um must have been postmarket and that all the volume was there. You had this dirty volume day because of S&P rebalancing. Then you had another one

rebalancing. Then you had another one here. Yet another one here. See that

here. Yet another one here. See that

volume spiky. You see how it it's it's and this is a big liquid name. It's

spiking up there. Spiking up there.

Spiking up there. Let's go to some more.

Let's go to the growth 250 and look at some of the thinner stocks.

That might be a little bit easier.

Let's look at some like thin but not so super thin.

Okay, these are in like the $20 million volume. So, you can see the volume spike

volume. So, you can see the volume spike there.

Um, that actually looks a little off, but you got a pickup in volume there.

You had some funky volume going on there. Maybe it was uh Oh, yeah. The 6.5

there. Maybe it was uh Oh, yeah. The 6.5

million shares, 4.2 million shares, but look, the price didn't do much. So at

most and then some something else maybe added to an index or some other an offering or or what have you. Um you

have a volume spike here. Do you see how like the volume kind of subsides goes up on that earnings day comes comes back down. So this general like U shape where

down. So this general like U shape where here's your peak volume right there on that earnings announcement. Peak volume

at your earnings announcement. Peak

volume at your earnings announcement. um

pick up in volume over there. Pick up in volume. So this day here, you've got all

volume. So this day here, you've got all that volume and it's down 15% on the day, but that was a known risk event. So

how much of that it was 167% above the average? Uh how much of that was just unwinding of options? Let's go.

Let's find one that for the next time I do one of these, I'll try to find one that is a little bit of a better example. Um, let's look at just look at

example. Um, let's look at just look at this one. So, you can see like all just

this one. So, you can see like all just normal volume and you got a big volume spike here, big volume spike here, big volume spike here, big volume spike here. What do they have in common? A

here. What do they have in common? A

bunch of buying demand, bunch of selling demand or earnings? Freaking earnings.

It's just earnings that is doing that.

That's just one. That's not why I say volume is dirty, but it's it's that's one of them. What was um is this other one

that um maybe it would be easier to see on a on a weekly chart. We'll look at that in a second. But here, look at this. Um

second. But here, look at this. Um

big volume spike here. This is more normal where this is a little bit easier to see. Big volume, no volume. Big

to see. Big volume, no volume. Big

volume. What's the difference? earnings.

Big volume here, big volume there.

What's the difference? Earnings. It's

not going on there. It's not going on there. Doesn't mean that the chart

there. Doesn't mean that the chart pattern didn't warrant a lot of buying or a lot of selling at the other places.

It was this risk event. And you kind of see how it's a non-event. Like this is what I was talking about on this day here. Let's go there. 8:26

here. Let's go there. 8:26

uh August 26.

Okay, so this is what it looks like the day before that earnings. Now we go forward a day and this is what I was saying with now

all of a sudden you got everyone's got that information in their spreadsheet and it gets pinned right up there. It

was, you know, yesterday it was trading 214. Now it's trading up to 297. you

214. Now it's trading up to 297. you

know, 275 to 297 all because of this earnings release that that end up um coming out. And you can just look at

coming out. And you can just look at these uh the volume spikes down here and tell where the earnings probably were.

Let's go back to the current date and we'll see if that's indeed the case.

Yep. Big spike there, earnings. Big

spike there, earnings. Big spike there, earnings. Big spike there, earnings. Big

earnings. Big spike there, earnings. Big

spike there, earnings. Now, let's look at on a weekly.

[clears throat] And you can see them there, too. These

little flags there. Same thing on the weekly where it's showing up when they came out. Look at all these spikes in

came out. Look at all these spikes in here. Just look at the freaking fish

here. Just look at the freaking fish tank. It's It's staring you in the face.

tank. It's It's staring you in the face.

It's saying this volume spike, volume spike, volume spike, volume spike is happening. And it's all around the

happening. And it's all around the earnings. So, that's just that's the

earnings. So, that's just that's the most obvious thing that is very clear to see. and start doing that when you're

see. and start doing that when you're going through charts. Um go I'm going to stop sharing. Uh stop sharing the go uh

stop sharing. Uh stop sharing the go uh as you're going through your charts or whatever you hold. Um

just look at the volume and the times where there are volume spikes. Well,

it's probably earnings. Then the other times would be there's a rebalance you the S&P rebalances once a year and the or I think that the Russell rebalances

what in is it June or July something like that and then you've got the different rebalancing of different ones sometimes more often than once a year but you get stocks are added to the S&P

or removed to the S&P and they have volume spikes on on those. So those are the the known things. Well, we've been going almost two hours and we haven't

even scratched the surface of the issue.

So, I'm just going to throw out just a couple different things to think about that that we will be talking about in future episodes, unless people watch this and they're like, I thought I

wanted a volume volume episode, but I don't. And if you think that, just don't

don't. And if you think that, just don't say it. But I'll I'll know if I don't

say it. But I'll I'll know if I don't get if there's hardly any positive comments, I'll I'll know that maybe we won't do any more of these because

Man, it's complicated. But

so here are the some of the things we'll talk about. Highfrequency trading,

talk about. Highfrequency trading, right? Just computers trading against

right? Just computers trading against computers. There's no buying or selling

computers. There's no buying or selling demand. There's just the computers

demand. There's just the computers trying to jump in front of other computers to try to just make that market or get that spread, get that fraction of a penny. That's not true

buying or selling pressure. you get the passive flows that are happening from an ETF, let's say. Um, it's funny, this was

a theory that I had for a long time and was talking to a another professional last year about it and and he was asking

me like, Mike, just tell me some of the the stuff with the with the volume and why you think it's so dirty. And I said, well, one of the

so dirty. And I said, well, one of the examples I gave him is I said, okay, let's say you're at a shop and the maximum exposure you can have to one

anyone instrument, anyone stock is say 10%. And you've got a max 10% position

10%. And you've got a max 10% position in that stock, but you want more of it.

Well, how can you do that but still get away with it? Well, what you would do is you would go in and you buy something else that has that. So, let's say you

want a bunch of Nvidia or AMD or TSM or or Broadcom, but you're maxed out either of official rule or just your own rule.

You know, you don't want to have more than 10% in any indiv one individual stock, which for a big outfit unless it is a, you know, concentrated hedge fund,

but for, you know, most big places, that's a big, you know, that's a big b.

I know we've talked about like having a lot more concentration than that, but I'm talking a big outfit. So, how's

what's another way that you can get that? Well, you can go in and you can

that? Well, you can go in and you can just buy the SMH or another ETF that that is a targeted ETF, maybe the the

SMH and you can get some exposure through it. Well, let's just keep it

through it. Well, let's just keep it simple with just the SMH. So you go and you say, "Okay, well the stock that that I own that I have my max position and is

10% of that ETF or 7% of that ETF. So

I'm going to go in and I'm going to buy some of that ETF. So now my exposure to that stock is even higher than it was because I've got this portion of it. But

you also have all these other stocks in that ETF." And this was just a theory I

that ETF." And this was just a theory I had and I said, "Well, I've done it. I

done it not not to get around rules but get around my own individual risk rules that I'd have like okay I don't want to have more than X in any in one stock but I will have exposure to that group by

doing the the group some group ETFs not to like get around some sort of restriction that is placed on me but just my own thing so I'm not doing

anything shady just trying to get some some more exposure there and he told me he's like yeah I do that all the time, but he's at a shop where they do have

rules on there. I was like, "Yeah, I thought everyone did that." You know, this was just one of one sliver of of things. And that's people who do it

things. And that's people who do it consciously. There's also people who

consciously. There's also people who will do that subconsciously. They look

at a sector. Let's say chips are really hot and they've got, you know, they've got some Nvidia and they've got some um ALAB and they've got some, you know, uh

whatever, you know, all all the different ones in in the space, but they also want some juice by buying that ETF.

Well, then they're they're in there buying that that ETF. So where does that ultimate buying uh pressure? So you're

in there really trying to increase your let's say Nvidia position by having this SMH position, but you're also getting TSM and you're getting Brocom and you getting the the thin little one two

that's in there. So ultimately that that volume then goes out to all of those other ones, right? because the owner of the ETF which is that's a whole can of

worms but essentially there's a buying demand for more units of that that ETF for reducing the units and and that's a whole can of worms and and where I think

the next flash crash is going to come from but that's a topic for not this series but so now there's all this

random buying in all these other ones and that volume is throwing it flowing through on the tape. Let's say you're you're targeting Nvidia, but you're buying the SMH, but it's also going

through to TSM. And people see the volume on the TSM, and they're like, "Oh, well, all this buying in there."

Well, no. The I didn't even want the TSM. I just wanted Nvidia, and maybe I

TSM. I just wanted Nvidia, and maybe I was fine with AMD, but I didn't want the other ones. Or vice versa. You know,

other ones. Or vice versa. You know,

just an example. I'm not an investment advisor. I don't play one on TV. This is

advisor. I don't play one on TV. This is

not investment advice. This is just me just trying to help you out. So, if you want investment advice, go to an investment advisor.

If you want to just be put to sleep, listen to not put to but if you want to fall asleep, just listen to me. So, with

this, I hope this makes sense, but makes sense in my head, but I also know I'm all over the place because that's what happens when you try to, you know, take something that's so complex and not go off on tangents. So now you you're

you're buying these shares in this ETF and that's expressed out on that tape or you're buying options on that SMH, right? Then you go out into the SMH and

right? Then you go out into the SMH and then you're you're you're buying those and then how does that volume then flow through to everything else? Or maybe you

go to the sock, you go to a 3x of that and that's a whole another can of worms. or you go out and you buy the socksole, you really want to magnify things, you go out and you buy some socks calls or

puts and then that gets floated through that whole thing that we were talking about before with the Microsoft example.

So again, the things that we're going to talk about in the future, ETFs, highfrequency trading, algos, algos for individual trades and true blackbox full

algos, algos like I created um uh Juan's first proof of concept ALGO that was rolled out over a decade ago there, but

then it was sunsetted and then I built a second one and we never got a chance to get that one going, but it was spent a couple years working on all the full

black box meaning no human involvement at all once it was launched. So I had to think of every what if possible and that's where a lot of this volumes thing actually came from with my studies of

that. So I will I will go into that in

that. So I will I will go into that in future ones of how ALOS full blackbox algos impact volume as

well as individual ALGO for a trade. So

before when we were talking about that 10,000 share trade, well now you could put that in with like a an algo like uh

you the ones that I always use used for a couple decades or been a T-W or percent of volume meaning a time weighted average price. So let's say you want to buy 10,000 shares but you want

to spread it out over a certain amount of time or a 100 shares you can do this with and you spread it out over the entire day. So the computer just goes in

entire day. So the computer just goes in there and and it will somewhat randomly over that set of time go in there and either do that buying or selling for you

to kind of try to hide it. Or one of my favorites back when I was running money out at O'Neal and at the shop out here um when I was a head PM at the the

family office out here in Austin that I would do a percent of volume.

you are, you don't want to push the stock up or down. So, you just go in and say, "Okay, I want to be 5% of volume."

So, that algo goes in there. You just

put the order in there and you can put a limit order if you want, you know, an ultimate top or an ultimate low in there. So, it doesn't go beyond that.

there. So, it doesn't go beyond that.

And it will just trade along at 5% of volume or 1% of volume or 15% of volume, whatever you put in there. And there's

lots of other algos in there. So they

are masking those orders. So you no longer see those big blocks that we used to see back in the day. And and at the beginning I kind of alluded to this

thing that I created for Bill. Um that

was a block trade indicator. So this is going back a couple decades ago. It was

only for the both of us to use where we' built it into Wanda which was our institutional version. And there was

institutional version. And there was this whole concept that I had that if there were block trades in there and it worked. If there were block trades in

worked. If there were block trades in going on, you didn't really know if that was a buy or a cell, right? So blocks

were typically thought of as like 10,000 shares or or larger. And this is back in the day. And you'd see that show up on

the day. And you'd see that show up on the tape and you didn't know where that really was. is was it a market maker

really was. is was it a market maker finishing up an order and printing it on there or was it something that just hit just naturally? You didn't know what was

just naturally? You didn't know what was going on where blocks just being crossed, you know, one buyer, one seller type of thing or or multiple buyers and one seller. You you didn't know what was

one seller. You you didn't know what was going on. But what you did know, this

going on. But what you did know, this was my concept was what you did know is ultimately what ended up happening later on in the day.

And if this is putting a complex thing into a complex indicator into kind of just trying to explain it easy. If you had a lot of blocks, lot more than normal. So

then you had to figure out what was normal and and that was a whole thing in itself. You have more more than normal

itself. You have more more than normal blocks and more than normal activity, meaning that the price was moving. This

was before I was using ATRs, but ATRs would have helped a lot. more than

normal price activity and then where did it close within the range. So the thought process is if it

range. So the thought process is if it closed near the highs that was buying closed near the lows it was selling abnormally large price move up or down it was buying or selling and lots of

other things but ultimately what it would do is if it was would interpret the locks and on balance was that buying pressure is selling pressure and it was

something we used for a while and then ultimately it stopped working because when the algos started coming in the blocks would you wouldn't have the

number of blocks that that you would have back in the day cuz so now when someone puts a 10,000 shares or maybe a 100,000 share ALGO in that's getting

broken up into 100,000 share chunks and sometimes less than 100 100 shares for a 100,000 share order and it's getting if you if you looked at your actual

transactions of your your fills like because that's what I would do when if there would be size order that I would put in. I would just out of

curiosity, I would go and look and see where did I actually get filled and it' be like 55 shares at this price, 179 shares at this price and and so on,

which was not what it was like back in back in yesterday year. Um, but anyway, so we'll talk about where was it going

with that? So, you talk about alos,

with that? So, you talk about alos, which is a big big topic. Well, we're

the algos have to think of everything right ahead of time that and it's all just computers talking to computers. So,

you didn't have that the that the true buy what do you call it like the the animal spirits. It's just computers.

animal spirits. It's just computers.

They don't have animal spirits. They're

just they're just going off what the code says. So, you've got the option

code says. So, you've got the option market which is a big deal. You've got

pre-market, post market, which really changes things. Now you got this silly

changes things. Now you got this silly like 24hour thing that they're trying to do. Um, but you have individual stock

do. Um, but you have individual stock ETFs that are like 1.5 or 2x the the

stock. So leveraged or inverse an

stock. So leveraged or inverse an inverse leveraged stock. So what about that volume? Then you've got um ones

that volume? Then you've got um ones that are are um let's say commodities.

Let's say, you know, like silver was, you know, having this big move and people are like reading into the s that volume and I'm just like laughing like there's no tomorrow. I was like, are you

freaking kidding me? Like grow a brain.

Grow I'm sorry. I don't mean to be mean, but like think through it. Why are you using volume on something that then is also, you know, a futures market and

then you've got options market and you've got other ways of of of trading that same instrument and you've got that traded in other places around the world.

So unless you're going to do a consolidated tape of volume and you're going to combine the option market volume, you're going to combine the the

that ETF, the other similar ETFs that uh trade less than it any leverage versions of it and the futures market and you're going to roll that up into one number.

Well, how in the world are you going to do that? Because you don't know if the

do that? Because you don't know if the someone buying the buying those contracts because then you've got both sides of it, right? a buyer and a seller

plus the the market maker who's who's hedging themselves. So all this volume

hedging themselves. So all this volume just turns it into being dirty and like how are you going to roll that up into one? Like come on, man. Like what are

one? Like come on, man. Like what are you thinking? And and I'm not being

you thinking? And and I'm not being mean, but I'm just it's or let's while we're on that topic. It drives me crazy.

people that are more veteran than I am been doing this since, you know, been in the industry since 93 um when I started working at at um Tro Price in in 1993.

So, I've got people that I know that have been trading, you know, from longer than that who look at things like the cues and interpret the volume on there. No

matter what how many times I say not to, they still like, oh, look at all that that buying. Well, oh my god. Okay, so

that buying. Well, oh my god. Okay, so

you've got Q's, you got QID, you got QLD, you got TQQQ, you got SQQ, you got the NASDAQ futures, you've got a million

other things that are so similar to that that probably have like a 99 correlation to it. Like you have

so many ways of expressing that same thing. And so you got the the the big

thing. And so you got the the the big NASDAQ futures contracts and then all the way through to the minis and the micros and whatever else that they've got going on these days. And you've got

the options on those as well. And you've

got the options on all of those. So if

someone was trying to hide their volume activity on the cues, there's a million ways that they could do it. Why are you a Why are you dude look at a freaking

chart is what I say to like these people who just don't want to hear and want to argue with me and have debates with me about and it's like dude I don't have 10 hours to talk to you about this. It's

I'm not talking talking about I'm not talking about you guys who are watching.

I'm talking about the the the people that you know have been trading longer than me that are thought of as these geniuses and stuff who just can't figure out to not look at spy volume and Q's

volume and IWM volume and and whatever else and interpret it dude just don't man just think for take a half an hour

and think and then just go no that just does not make any sense you you're not thinking and I don't know how

else to to say it is like you really and I'm not being mean. I'm just there.

Anyone who's been trading for less than 10 15 years, you get a total pass. Like

100% total pass. Like how would you know? Like unless you grew up on level

know? Like unless you grew up on level two or Bill was a think of it. Bill was

a uh do I have those?

Trying to think if I still have those pictures handy.

I don't I don't think I I think I put them in storage, but they used to have these pictures of Bill back. They're

black and white of of Bill and I think I've posted them on Twitter before that.

Let me go see if I can find it. Just

hold on. Don't go away.

All right. Well, I'm back. I couldn't

find the pictures because I did just literally just put those boxes in storage this weekend. But I did find this one um binder I had with bunch of

stuff, Phil stuff. So that was Bill back in the day. Um

and uh here I didn't see if you can uh get it better.

But those are essentially behind them.

Those were his tickers. But then he also had around the top he had this ticker tape that that he that he had the kind of like what if you look at like Fox

Business or CNBC or something you got the ticker tape along the bottom that has the the symbol and then the change.

But what he would pay attention to were the number of shares traded and then if there was a block on there. And so he he was a tape reader and he would always look at the look at that and we we would

talk about that, but I would look at it in time and sales on on my computer, but that's how he had always looked at he was a tape reader. And if you go back to Liverour, that was he was reading the

tape off the ticker tape. Like you just Google what a a ticker tape looks like.

It was this little, it was before my time, but it was this like kind of this glass thing with this continuous paper that would come out like like this kind of just like what you see along the

bottom of CNBC and and Fox Business and it would, you know, have the symbol and and the shares and and the price that it that it traded at information like that.

And so you would back then you would read it as it was going or Bill would you know so that was how it was originally and then it changed to a tape

that you know uh if you could afford it was going around the building or around your your office building and then um then ultimately with like time and sales

and level two and and all of that stuff.

So the the volume that he he would have watched back in the day, that was real true volume that was going through because there was no

option market. There was no ETFs that

option market. There was no ETFs that that people could get exposure to that way or there was impacting that. There

wasn't after hours trading or or pre-market trading. There wasn't shares

pre-market trading. There wasn't shares that were being traded overseas. Like

cuz if you don't know there's also domestic stocks, meaning US stocks that are traded over in Germany and over in other places. So when our market is

other places. So when our market is closed, those are open and that you can trade them there. And now this whole 24-hour nonsense and and everything. So

there's all the the way I the reason why I mentioned is all these ways of expressing your bullish and bearishness on an on an

area or an individual stock that didn't happen back in the day. So,

man, there's so many moving parts and and and a million other things that I'm just not getting into right now because then each one of these you can see it just goes off and on on all these

tangents to why this is so confusing. So, let's try to summarize

confusing. So, let's try to summarize what we did today in this train wreck.

But, I just kept that train rolling, right? You know, one of their best

right? You know, one of their best songs, by the way, if you know what I'm talking about. or one of the songs done

talking about. or one of the songs done by many and over the decades. But

anyway, the we are talking about volume and my concept of volume is dirty.

Volume is extremely important. The

concept of volume is extremely important because it confirms the price movement that you're seeing that if that stock

goes from $50 to $55, that was true buying pressure and the volume coming in there was telling you that there was true conviction because the the whole

point of it was to not get false moves.

Like I'm buried the lead. I guess the whole point of looking at volume was to confirm like where there's real buying pressure or let's say a stock was coming

off and and it was breaking a key level or let's say a 50-day moving average but it was doing it on light volume relative to recent volume. um whether the prior

day or or 50-day average or lots of ways of looking at it and you know it was coming off on light volume so oh there

wasn't really a lot of selling pressure there so it's okay well no now that selling could get hidden like and h man

we're going to have to go into some of these now So, yeah. Yeah, I do. So, one of the things

yeah. Yeah, I do. So, one of the things that kind of got me thinking about this, one of the earliest things that got me thinking about it before I had any

evidence on the tape or or true evidence was Bill made this comment to me and we were we were watching this stock. We

both wanted to buy it and we were looking at it and and deciding what to do with it, whether to put it on the Nesmi list or not and then ultimately then we would have bought it. it was

breaking breaking out I just can't remember what stock it was but it was at least 20 years ago and it was breaking out of something but the volume rate which we looked watched like a hawk

because Bill would always say a volume rate you want on a breakout 50% or higher and this was a liquid name not some thin little one and the volume rate

was just stopping at like around 40 40 to 45% volume rate and that volume rate would change throughout the day is you prorrated throughout the day and all and

I'll have to get into that topic another time. I don't want to derail this and

time. I don't want to derail this and have it be five hours today. So, he was watching that. We're on the phone and

watching that. We're on the phone and he's like, "M, you see what they're doing?" You know, I'm like, "What?" And

doing?" You know, I'm like, "What?" And

he's like, "They're they're playing possum with this. They know they know they're not they're not going to put this over 50% cuz they figured it out.

They know that we all be looking for that. they're going to keep it there for

that. they're going to keep it there for and sure enough they did. I don't know if they gave it if they cared at all what well what we thought if you think about it if you're trying

to build and then he went on and we have this this well I'll explain it the way that he would have explained it because I would have I totally agree with it.

So, the way he would explain it would be um if you're a big mutual fund and you're or a big hedge fund and you're in there and this you've got 500,000 shares

of the stock and you want to end up having 2 million shares on it and it's breaking out and you're it's breaking out at at a 100 bucks

and you're in there increasing your position and let's say you're trying to buy as much of it as you can but You don't want the volume rate on the day.

Again, remember the volume rate is how to measure anything above normal. So, if

it normally trades a million shares on the day and it trades a million shares that day, the volume rate would be zero.

If it traded 2 million shares, it would be 100. If it traded three million

be 100. If it traded three million shares, it would be a 200 volume rate.

And what we found from a lot of our studies is that volume rate of 200% or more on a breakout was very significant.

And I confirmed that with my big um study that I did from 1963 to 2013 on every stock ever that broke out of a

base um every base um and confirmed that that was very very meaningful during that time frame. that was clean data

times that um but we would preach and and he would this was his thing and and I agreed with it was 50% was kind of that threshold that you want and so this

stock was at 40 to 45 that day and it really got me thinking and because he was saying didn't believe him at first but he's like these people know and they

still have a bunch of shares to be bought and so they don't want to run this volume rate up too high because then you're going to get a bunch of us in there that are following this system.

And so it's not anything pro or against any particular system. If you're the guy on the desk who's in charge of working an order for this big PM and you're

you're tasked with the order, you're going to be watching that and not push it up or just like because they're getting this is so complicated because

there's so many moving parts. But you've

got your head PM who is deciding, okay, he's talking to analyst, talking to the company and that they're buying and they're like, okay, I want to increase this up to a 5% weight of my fund and

right now I'm at 1%. So that means we got 4% to buy and we've got to buy that over the next, you know, I want it done over the next two months. So buy as much

as you can, but don't buy more than 5% of the volume on any given day, unless this, this, or that. And then you're going to be and then he gives that order

to his desk at his fun family. And then

that guy or girl takes half that order and then he puts the rest of that order out with his people like because we had a big trading desk, right? Folks would

Fidelities of the world and stuff would trade through. So then it gives maybe

trade through. So then it gives maybe they're going to be working 500,000 shares and they give us 100,000 shares or maybe they're 5 million whatever like

large amounts. And so and he gives

large amounts. And so and he gives instructions that you're only going to be considered a good trader if you can get this done without impacting the price by x amount. And so they would

look at things like what what was the average average weighted volume on the day and and were you above that or below that? And that's a sign of a good trader

that? And that's a sign of a good trader versus a bad trader. By trader, I don't mean someone who's deciding what to buy or sell. They are taking that order and

or sell. They are taking that order and they're working that order on on the system the best that they can. Sitting

on a bid, taking offers, doing all all sorts of things, be putting let's let's just think pre-algo time where they couldn't put it in with an algo. So, you

got a couple desks working this and they're one of the things is they're saying, "Okay, well, don't put it through this level because the Fibonacci kids like that level or don't put it

through this level because the the Ballinger folks are going to then be all over it and don't put it through this level because the IBDers are going to then buy it." And so, they're aware

because that's their job and they're doing a really good job at it. That

that's that's their task. Their task

isn't to figure out is the general market good, is the general market bad, what sectors are good, sectors are bad, what stocks to buy, what stocks to sell, what stocks to hedge. They're just order

takers and they're really good at it and they're trying to do a good job at hiding things. They don't want to like

hiding things. They don't want to like it's like it's a big poker game. They

don't want to go, "Oh, I got aces. Hey,

you know, or I've got a 72 off suit."

They're trying to act like they've got something they don't. It's a big poker game. So that's what Bill was

game. So that's what Bill was essentially saying. And he would always

essentially saying. And he would always say he call me up and it would be like a really good stock and there would be no volume like volume rate would be negative meaning less than average. And

granted we did this like prorated throughout the day. So the volume at half an hour into the market was different than what it would be at, you know, half an hour left in the market.

And that's a whole separate topic. But

so we'd be watching this real time volume rate and you go, "Mike, look at that." I go, "What? Look at the volume."

that." I go, "What? Look at the volume."

Go, "I don't see any volume." He's like, "That's right. It's playing pawsome.

"That's right. It's playing pawsome.

They're playing possum. They're just

accumulating it slowly. You know,

they're working this." Now, he never told me, but he was probably also lots of these things, you know, he was talking to all these big clients, you know, they were talking to him. They

wanted to talk to him, you know, and they were paying, you know, millions of dollars in order flow and and and stuff a year to be able to talk to Bill and it

was a big deal. And so the the information would go both both ways and he would always pick up on these really fascinating things and because he'd been around the block

and so I I would pick up on those things. So he he would say things like

things. So he he would say things like they're keeping that volume down and it just kind of was in the back of my mind and I paid attention to every word that dude said like every single word like it

really did and tried to figure out everything that he was saying. He wasn't

always right. No one's always right but there was nobody better at the market as far as I'm concerned and and he wasn't always right uh with that either but it was no one ever is. And just remember

that just remember that is very important. um for yourself too because

important. um for yourself too because you're going to be hot and then all of a sudden you're going to be cold then you're going to be hot and you're going to be cold and don't don't don't take it personally that's just you know if Bill was hot and cold then it just gives you

a comfort level gives me a comfort level because I saw like all the warts and everything and like he's still still the best but he made a lot of mistakes and so it makes me feel better when I make

51 and a half mistakes a day so playing possum would be one thing so people aware of not trying to push up that volume so if you were doing that. Let's

say these days you're in there and and you're buying a bunch of cues, let's say, and you got these veterans act like noviceses with the way I see it, man.

Look at a chart. Study a chart. Um, and

I'm being nice. I really am cuz they're telling me that I don't know I'm I'm talking about with the volume. So, man,

don't don't play that game with me. I'll

be nice, but don't don't tell me that.

So, they're looking at the cues. They're

like, "These people who don't understand stuff, the that volume rate on the Q's is going up there. Let's just go buy in a futures market. Let's go buy some let's buy some calls. Let's buy some

QLD. Let's buy some TQQ. Let's short

QLD. Let's buy some TQQ. Let's short

some SQ lots of different ways. Or let's go in and buy SPY and look at the correlation.

Say, okay, well, how much of that is correlated?" Okay, well, if I match a

correlated?" Okay, well, if I match a spy with a SMH with a, you know, XLK and whatever, I can still get to my Q thing.

Like, there's a million ways of keeping that volume down. Or there's also a million ways of getting that volume up high if you want. Let's say you're uh

let's do it the opposite, not a possum.

You want it, you've got um I'll wrap it up with this one because we've got so many other things to do. Let's say

you're you're that guy or girl who is saying that the charts are your footprint. So you can manufacture a

footprint. So you can manufacture a base. Think about it. You got enough

base. Think about it. You got enough money you can manufacture a base because you can and you know that there is those cups and handles people out there and they like to cup a certain way and they

like to handle a certain way and not too deep and not too shallow and no wedging.

And so they go in there every day and they're buying and selling at certain levels to to get it to look that way.

Now they've got this big position. The

stock is is is in this base and they they've accumulated, let's say, a million shares and they want to bring that down to 100,000 shares. So they got 900,000 shares they need to blow out.

Well, they start blowing that out, that stock is going to roll and then they're they're toast. So what are they going to

they're toast. So what are they going to do? um maybe not the most ethical thing,

do? um maybe not the most ethical thing, but I don't think illegal. Push that

stock up through the breakout, right?

Let's say it's a cup with handle and the pivots 51 and a half and it pushes it through there as it's going through there. But let's say again they already

there. But let's say again they already have a they have a million shares but they really want to bring this down to 100,000 shares and they go in right at the pivot and they blast in and and they

buy 50,000 shares at the market and then they sit on the bid with 10,000 shares and keep on pushing it up. So now

everyone out there is looking at it going, "Oh my god, there's a big buyer in there. Let me jump in front of them."

in there. Let me jump in front of them."

So they're jumping in front of them and this person with a million shares with more that they're buying. And that now they've got a million one maybe that they don't really want those shares but

they want to get this ball rolling. This

train kept on rolling up and so it is move up and they're like I can hear my train coming and so it's going up there.

Now those ducks are quacking and this portfolio manager uses this momentum that he he or she created to sell into.

You don't think that happens? Look at a chart. study the chart. We'll we'll do

chart. study the chart. We'll we'll do that on the It's most obvious on the the ones that stair step down. We'll we'll

we'll do an episode on that because when you see that, you'll be like, "Oh, I get it now of the getting tra." Oh, shoot. I

got to share it. I just have to um because it was such a good example. It's

Let me share the screen again.

Yeah, this is this was a is a great example of it. Let me just move this over. So, think about it. You're in

this over. So, think about it. You're in

there and you don't like this stock anymore and you break it out of this base up here to just sell into, but you don't you don't get everything done and

it's now it's down to this level here.

You're like, "Oh man, if if I keep selling and pressuring it here in a big wave, this thing is going to break wide open." But you know what? Too late. It's

open." But you know what? Too late. It's

already going down. So then you stop selling and it's tight in there for for a few weeks. Let me blow this up a little bit more so you can see that a

little better. Okay. So they're buying

little better. Okay. So they're buying it in here, pushing it up, selling it.

Now it's in here tight because they they've they've stopped selling it on balance, but everyone else is still doing their stuff. So it's still moving around. Then they try to get it back up

around. Then they try to get it back up through the 200 day because they want they want to unload more shares, but they're only one person and they can

only get it up so much. And then it um it runs into resistance there and then it breaks wide open on this day because

now the person's like, shoot, I had, you know, 900,000 shares to sell. This thing

got started breaking on me. let me get as many shares sold this week as I can because this is an earnings week again with the that earnings thing going there. So, it magnifies it. So, now

there. So, it magnifies it. So, now

they're selling those shares into this because even though it's breaking wide open, at least there's liquidity there because you always have this liquidity

on the earnings. Um, as you can see with the big volume spikes, then the big volume spikes that you see there. Then

the same thing happens over and over again where these bad breaks they're waiting to unload. So you can I mean it just it just jumps out with off the

chart. I mean here here here to a lesser

chart. I mean here here here to a lesser extent here because it's running into something here. um now it finally

something here. um now it finally changes over here or they just decided to not sell that time in hopes that it would

lift up and um that that's how I interpret that someone being trapped into a stock. There was another stock that someone kept on bringing up that

reminded me of this this path of someone being trapped in it. And someone really liked it over in here and I'm like just wait for it to get back above here and

form a base or maybe even above here and form a base and actually hold. So then

you know that the seller was truly out of there because I think someone was trapped in it there at the 200 day tried to sell some there. I got trapped there.

Got were trying to sell as many as they could on that earnings announcement.

Just steady earnings announcements and the volume with it. Um and then getting in here they sold into it here, right?

Again, no coincidences. This is all happening around earnings. Um that was actually a constructive earnings announcement right there because it was it it happened and you didn't have a lot

of volatility but um then again they were just selling it in to there. So

just always keep that in mind. You can

do this through you know a million charts of just someone being trapped into it and don't get sucked in u to to that. Let me stop sharing. Man, this is

that. Let me stop sharing. Man, this is why I I didn't want to do I was scared about this episode because there's so much going on.

We were all over the place. When I

listen back to this, I'll kind of see where we need to go next. I'll also

listen I'll I'll look at your comments and see where people are are having confusion and try to talk more about that. So, if there's a common thread of

that. So, if there's a common thread of like they're confused about one top, you guys are confused about one topic or another portion of this, put them in the comments and then I'll try to focus in

on that because this is a kind of a one-way street. Like to me, this seems

one-way street. Like to me, this seems so obvious, but then I've been thinking about it for a long time and else I understand the market mechanics and oh my god, there's so many things I want to

talk about and that each thing will just take forever. So, let's summarize as

take forever. So, let's summarize as much as we can. I have a theory that I'm trying to share with everyone. And why

am I trying to do this? What am I gonna get out of this? Nothing but grief.

Nothing but grief. All I get is people being like, "Well, yeah, Michael's really smart and he's added a lot to the system, but he's all wrong on this on

this volume thing. Volume does matter."

I'll say it again.

Stop saying I say volume doesn't matter.

Volume matters so much. I just don't have a way of saying how clean the volume is. The more you think about this

volume is. The more you think about this and the more you peel back the onion and you peel back the onion and that peel is a whole onion in itself and you start peeling it back, you're like the only

thing I know is volume is dirty. I don't

know by how much. Is it 1%? Is it 50%?

Is it 75%.

Um it's an unknown. So the way I approach it is I just don't use it. I

don't use it when it makes my case.

Sometimes people will say, "Oh, well, look, there's a lot of volume. I know

you don't really care for volume, but look at all that volume." It's typically on an earnings and I'm like, "Oh, god."

But um or on a on a breakout. So, again,

think about it. You're a big fund in there and a stock is breaking out. Even

if you don't believe in charts, you understand charts and you understand where a bunch of people are going to buy it. You might pressure that thing up

it. You might pressure that thing up with a lot of volume to get that volume.

So everyone's like, "Oh, there's volume in there now." Only to turn around and sell it. And look, I've been trapped in

sell it. And look, I've been trapped in a stock before. Not not in a big way a big big huge massive fund would be, but in a way that I had too much size for a

stock. And if I kept on putting that

stock. And if I kept on putting that pressure on without thinking through it, I would have broken the stock wide open and been there in a trapped feeling. And

in fact, you know, Bill was that way back when he was in um I think it was both Price Company and Pick and Save where he had so much of those and those are ones that he held for a long time. I

remember him telling me that like he's like, "Mike, I I had built up I think it was like was it pick and save that was a 5 percent or maybe it was both of them, but that he had owned 5% of the company

and or almost right up to 5% and I think it was like if he owned more than 5% then he was going to have to do some stuff like disclose it and some other um restrictions or something on them and so

he would own just a little just underneath that but it was thin and if he wanted to bail Well, man, he was going to break that thing wide open. He

was aware of that and he was scared about that. And I think that really

about that. And I think that really changed a lot of his his trading because that was, you know, you're talking in the 80s and he he morphed a lot and then that was back when he was doing small

caps and then he eventually was into the mega caps and large caps for the liquidity reasons to not being trapped because he was he was hyper concentrated into stocks. when

he was trading price company and pick and save he was he was 200% long but those names like all in and on full margin which don't do that don't do that yeah

don't do that but when so he he was he was aware of being trapped so he understood the market mechanics of things back in the day and that's why why he adjusted how he how he traded and

and the size that he would have in anything you know thin and me I ran the size of money that he ran obviously because it was a subset of his his

account of of his wealth and but I was trapped in things and then really paid the price and then learned like oh wow you've got to figure out ways to get out

in a graceful way and the easiest way to put it is and a an old one of the PMs back in the day Lee would say this thing

you know you got to feed the ducks when they're quacking. And other people say

they're quacking. And other people say that too. It's old saying that when

that too. It's old saying that when there is volume there, it's my daughter.

I got to take this. Don't go away.

Wow. I I'm back. I'm just looking at the time. It's already 7:00 at night. Um

time. It's already 7:00 at night. Um

what a pleasant um uh surprise getting that phone call from my daughter. And um

so where was I? I I think I was talking about the ducks quacking. Um the old thing that Lee used to say is and it's

very important. It's that if you because

very important. It's that if you because you you got to stop thinking about trading the size that you're trading assuming you're trading normal size that

any one person would trade and think about not trading a lot, trading a ton like 100 billion plus. And

what those people um the situation they're in that they can they can't sell when they want. They sell when and they can. And

want. They sell when and they can. And

so sometimes that'll be when they don't really want to. Let's say the stock is breaking but it's breaking out earnings.

So there's a lot of liquidity there because of all the things that we've talked about or you know there's also the people that play just on earnings or or in a news announcement. So they'll go

in there and just say, "Okay, well there's a lot of volume today. Let's

let's participate." Or as we were talking about like not being more than five or 10% of the average of the volume on the any given day. So there's a lots of volume there. If it stock normally

trades, let's just call it a million shares a day and you don't want to be more than 10 10% of that. Well, you can only trade 100,000. it trades five million shares that day, that same

stock, then then you can trade 5x, you know, you you know, 500,000 shares. So

you you trade when you can and and you if you look at that on charts, especially if you go to a weekly chart and you see one of those stocks that are breaking down, breaking down, breaking down lower, kind of stairstepping lower,

but like a big stair step and then lower. That is someone in my opinion

lower. That is someone in my opinion that's someone who's who's trapped in there and they're just using those liquidity events uh to get out. Now,

there's other people in there, too.

other reasons why they're selling, but a lot of the selling from mass amounts of money is because of that. And that's one of the things that's changed as well and one of the topics that we'll talk about

for for the future episodes on this if we do it. Yeah, we're going to do it because I I want want to try to express

my thoughts on why the volume is dirty.

I I really do want to express all the reasons or a lot of the key reasons of why I think that the volume is dirty.

So, we'll do that over a lot of episodes. So, again, I know I'm

episodes. So, again, I know I'm repeating myself, but we'll talk about the ETFs, mutual funds, mutual funds meaning they control so much money. Now,

that's a whole thing. the algos, high frequency traders, foreign traders, pre-market trading, after hours trading options, futures, um, all other

leveraged type of versions of of, well, let's just put it this way, anything other than the actual instrument itself.

So, if you're trading Microsoft MSFT, that's the instrument, that in theory should only be traded from

um from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern

Standard Time. Everything outside of that and not traded on on that that symbol is outside of the real price and volume. Because remember when you're

volume. Because remember when you're looking at that price bar, that's the price bar of the the activity that happened during that normal trading session, but then now you're talking

about all this other stuff or or that same stock being traded over in Germany or or elsewhere or in all the other ways you the option market. And so we're

going to talk about all that and and really you don't know how dirty the volume is.

is there's no way that anyone could say the volume is clean if you have a clue.

Now, if you've been traded 5, 10, maybe even 15 years and you don't get it, you're like, "Oh, yeah, volume is clean." Dude, you get a pass, man. But

clean." Dude, you get a pass, man. But

if you're a professional, you've been trading longer than that and you just haven't put thought into it, which is no big deal. I haven't put thought into a

big deal. I haven't put thought into a lot of things. If someone said some some random fundamental data item isn't clean, um book value, I never look at book value. Some people take it very

book value. Some people take it very seriously and they're like, "Oh, book value isn't clean anymore because all these offbalance sheet, blah blah blah or what, whatever." Like, it's a, you

know, that's a world that I'm not in.

And they did that, I'd be like, okay, well, but I would be that that same person who just has never put a lot of deep thought into it because it didn't matter to me. But if if charts matter to

you, then the data on that chart should matter. One of the things with the with

matter. One of the things with the with the micro not not the Microsoft beta the market surge beta that we have out right now that still has tons of bugs. So

during trading hours I would just use the legacy version. I would not use the beta version. But one of the things with

beta version. But one of the things with that and and that was really I can't take credit for uh or blame for the um the new version of it because it was

really a group effort. I'm focused in on ratings and and uh pattern recre and growth 250 and I'm just one person it with a I'm one chef of a lot of chefs

for this thing. But one of the things that this chef wanted was the ability to turn volume off on the charts because I'd rather replace that with some of my

own indicators and stuff that we'll eventually put in. We'll get the the Webby RSI and my Bob Marley and some other indicators that I've never even that I've created that I've never

shared. We'll get it those in there o

shared. We'll get it those in there o over time and I'll just put them in in the place where the volume is because I even look at volume. I mean, my eyes don't even go there. I don't look at it

at all. I use it for liquidity

at all. I use it for liquidity concerns, meaning how much volume trades on a given day. So, I'll use like $75 million volume as one of my key thresholds.

stepping down a bit all the way down to 25 million. There's nothing magical

25 million. There's nothing magical about these numbers, but you got to pick a level. So, is $74 million volume okay?

a level. So, is $74 million volume okay?

Sure. But then 65, well, at some you've got to put a different different levels on there for liquidity. I talked about

and last any given Sunday with Bill that Bill's rule was 400,000 shares, but he would deviate from that at times. And

that brings me God this is like this onion man I got to tell you I'll this will be my last thing for today. So is

volume historically over time. So I went and now that's a too big of a topic.

I'll talk about this aspect of it that um when I did my big base study what I did is I wanted to exclude the and that was in 2013 and went back to all stocks

to 1963 and I excluded depending on different runs that I made with the test either the bottom 10 or the bottom 20% by

dollar volume not share volume dollar volume how many dollars actually floated through there because I knew that we didn't like trading thin end stocks. I

didn't want them as part of my study because then it it distorts the end data because if you've got stuff in your universe that you'll never trade, then why study it that then it distorts the

stats? Maybe all the best performance

stats? Maybe all the best performance comes from those. That doesn't make any sense. So, if you're not going to buy a

sense. So, if you're not going to buy a $2 stock, don't have it in your study.

So I put the threshold at 10 bucks because that's was a hard and fast rule and at the pivot and then looked at every this was automated but every base

so tens and thousands hundreds of thousands of bases because this was dead stocks meaning stocks that have merged or gone out of business um as well as

ones that have still been trading.

And from 1963 to 2013, it was a big big giant study that I did. But I when I was going through it, at first I was like an idiot. I was like, "Okay, well, I'm

idiot. I was like, "Okay, well, I'm going to put the volume thresholds at let's just say 400,000 shares or above."

Or really, I put I think originally I put it like 25,000 shares traded or above. And then I look back in time, I'm

above. And then I look back in time, I'm like, well, can't use that because in 19 in let's say in 2013 25,000 was thin.

Well, go back 30 years and that was liquid and go back before that and it was the most liquid the biggest traded stock out there. Just throwing numbers

out. And then I'm like, "Oh, wow. That's

out. And then I'm like, "Oh, wow. That's

a big problem. There's no one threshold."

threshold." And so then what I did is each year I take the data set and say okay for for 1963 take all the dollar volume for that

and lop off the bottom 10% or 20% because I did it in two different ways and for 1963 and we're going to remove those and then went to 1964 did the same

thing 65 and so on. So it was on a percentile basis so I either got rid of the bottom 10 or 20%. So I got very comfortable with going back in time and

looking at volume and how volume changed over over the years and decades and then and certainly because I did this big study going all the way back to 1880 and

1880 through the 1963 to fill in that part of the database and you'd be shocked how thin things used to trade you know and back in the day some of the dirty volume would have from the

Livermore's day would have come from the bucket shops anyone who understands that. I'll keep that topic for another

that. I'll keep that topic for another another episode. But with the normal

another episode. But with the normal trading, um, it just morphed so much.

The volume just increased. All the price patterns pretty much look the same, but the volume itself expanded. The average

volume dramatically. You can go back and study that and charts from the 1960s and 70s and 80s and 90s and look at how much that changed because all the money

flowing in from it's really become a global market and it's really become um a 24-hour market almost in a lot of ways and it's

become ETFs and mutual funds and hedge funds and all the other things that we talked about that with all this money the the amount of volume just keeps on

increasing and increasing. So to make a long story short, I was doing a a project and was showing shown some

charts to build for some things in the I think it was in the 80s and 90s and and I was given them some some stocks to to

look at for for something that we were working on and I forget what which project it was. wasn't the base the week by week base, but it was something else and I gave it to him and and whenever I

did stuff for him, I took it super seriously and printed out and I bind it and do it all myself and then because I wanted to make sure the quality control on it was like good and I gave it to him

and I got this one back and I still have it in storage where it was like volume's too low, volume's too low, volume's too low, volume's too low and all of these things but they were the most liquid

names those Here's so here's Bill the master right you know and he can't even remember and that this was

he was fine you know that there was no issues cuz this was so there were no so he was looking at that and he couldn't even remember he couldn't he's like why is this this

thing only trades 50,000 shares a day this only trades 25 you get it out of the sample if I got it out of the sample there would zero in the sample because that's what liquid names were those

years and if he couldn't get it then I have empathy for people who don't get it who don't go and understand how much volume has increased over the years just

go back find your some old stocks you can go online and say okay well what was what were the key stocks in the Dow you can go on like Wikipedia or graipedia or

whatever your preferred one is and go and see like what were Dow components or the biggest S&P components and you pick a year and then go. Unfortunately, our

database now only goes to 1984 really kills me. But find the data, you know,

kills me. But find the data, you know, in the 70s and the 60s for those and how much volume it traded and you will just be shocked at how thin things were

because volume was different. Volume was

clean back then because there weren't options on stocks. There weren't algos.

weren't ETFs. They weren't trading in pre-market and postmarket. They weren't

trading overseas. They weren't, you know, all these other things. Spreads

were big. Commissions were high. If

there was volume in there, it was confirming that price action. Times have

freaking changed. You've got to recognize that. Or not. I'm just trying

recognize that. Or not. I'm just trying to help, man. Just trying to help. And

it got me when when Bill put out and took a ton of of

career risk and and reputation risk when he said pees low pees were not relevant and pees weren't relevant. if anything

really higher P's were better in what he found um and that was sacriiggious and to a lot of people even to day in 2026

they still think the lower the P the better well no it's he would always explain it this way was with and it always bothered me because I knew what he paid me and I knew what he paid some other people that he would say well

imagine because some people asked for raises and some other people just thought a raise should come to them for doing good work and thought it was polite to just wait. Mike, you're so

silly, idealistic and all, but he would say like, "Okay, look at a sports team."

And he would like talk about the Lakers or something. And he say, "Okay, well,

or something. And he say, "Okay, well, who's the highest price uh person?" I

don't follow sports. Was it was Magic Johnson on there or Larry? Whatever.

Again, I don't know these people. I

think Larry Bird was on a different team or Kareem. I saw Kareem once at Costco.

or Kareem. I saw Kareem once at Costco.

I gotta tell this story. I might have told this story before. I'll tell it short. I'm at Costco in line and he's

short. I'm at Costco in line and he's there with another guy who's tall and then Kareem is just like super tall and I don't care about sports. And they're

there and the they were buying Gillette razors and um I always had the coupon books with me and and I knew that the if you bought the razor and the shaving

cream that the discount was so much it was like you were getting the shaving cream for for free. And so they were in front of me and they had that and I knew it was in there and I wouldn't have cared who was in front of me. I was just

going to tell them and and I told them I'm like, "Hey, there's a discount on this on this thing." And they just like looked at me like I was like, "Why am I talking to you?" And I didn't care that

was freaking Kareem other than he was like freaking tall, man. And the guy with him was freaking tall and made cream made him look short and I look like a freaking like like I was an inch

tall. And I don't even know why I got

tall. And I don't even know why I got off on that tangent. I had to pause it.

I had to pause it to remember. I'm

getting old. Um and I'm tired. Uh and

it's been a long day and I got to do this again. It's Monday. Why? I

this again. It's Monday. Why? I

shouldn't record these on a Monday. It's

going to make for a long week. But

anyways, the whole reason why I got on that sports thing was Oh, yeah. He would

talk about the Lakers and then the different pay and he would say, "Okay, well, Kareem is going to get paid, you know,

50% of the of the salary, you know, for the team, and then the next person is going to get paid 30%, then you're going to get all these little these other

people getting paid much less." Um

because people are getting paid what they're worth. Well, in theory, um,

they're worth. Well, in theory, um, doesn't always happen that way, but uh, so that was his way of relating things to pees, saying, "Okay, you've got three

stocks in a group and one of them's got a PE of 150, another one of at 50, and another one at 155 or let's call it 20." That there's a

most people would be like, "Oh, well, I don't want to buy the 150 one. That's

your Kareem. you don't want to buy the 50 one because that's your next person and then you want to buy the cheap one.

Well, that's your run-of-the-mill one.

It's it's being priced at for a reason.

And when he explained that was like, [sighs] wow, I might not follow sports, but I, you know, I totally get that when

it comes to uh like a band or something like you see like let's say let's go with Van Halen, right? Well, I love Mikey and all, but Mikey would be the

first person to tell you that he shouldn't get paid the same amount, and he didn't end up getting paid the same amount as Eddie, right? Because Eddie is more important than Michael in in that

situation. Doesn't mean he's better

situation. Doesn't mean he's better person, worse person, or whatever, but the value there to that group like then they were they were able to put Wolfie

in there in in in place of Mike Mikey.

and it was that that that was an improvement depending on how how how you look at it from a musical standpoint or whatever, but but it was still Eddie. I came out

the wrong way cuz man, I love Mikey.

Mikey's sort of the other half and I I would I oh man, can't go on that tangent, but but anyways, it was a terrible analogy, but I understood what he he meant by things getting getting

the value that they should from a salary standpoint and then the same thing from a PE. But he risked his career putting

a PE. But he risked his career putting that out there like that because people look at him like, "Oh, you're just crazy. You're the guy who looks at

crazy. You're the guy who looks at charts and and thinks the pees aren't relevant." Well, what he did is he

relevant." Well, what he did is he looked at the fish tank and he by the models that was his go back to the beginning of this, the whole fish tank thing if you skipped over that and he

looked at it and said, "Well, that data item is not relevant that or at least it's not relevant the way people think that the lower the PE the better." Now,

we did use pees, but that's in PE expansion, that's a whole different thing, and it does work, but not from a selection standpoint. And so, he risked

selection standpoint. And so, he risked his reputation and stuff by saying that.

And when I came to the conclusion, cuz I'd been thinking about this dirty volume thing for a long time, and it really probably

came to a head in like 2015 or so when I was doing my algo stuff and then it just got bigger and bigger after that as once I started focusing on it. And then it got to a point where I was like, I just

need to tell the world because it's not cool not to. But I also understood the risk I was taking by doing that. And it

just I'll just say it pisses me off because I have friends who say that Mike thinks the volume isn't relevant. Let me

tell you again and I'll put this clip out there. You who are saying that

out there. You who are saying that Webbby says the volume isn't relevant.

You are full of it. Volume is super relevant. The volume data is just dirty

relevant. The volume data is just dirty and there's no way to get clean uh data.

And that's what this series is going to be about. And by the end of this, you're

be about. And by the end of this, you're either going to be sick of hearing about it or you're going to understand it. And

if you have a closed mind, you're not watching this anyways. So, who cares?

So, this is for you with your open mind that you're watching it. And I

appreciate it. And let me just tell you this because we're wrapping it up. I

really sincerely appreciate all of the the the kind, very, very kind comments that I get in these. It's really keeping me going. I don't have time to do these,

me going. I don't have time to do these, but I'm on a mission. I really want what's in here to be put out there. So,

for my grandkids, future grandkids. I

don't have grandkids yet. Uh my daughter who just called, you know, her and her twin are 24. They have no plans of having kids anytime soon, but I don't know if I'm going to be around when when

uh we none of us know. But I think there's a strong likelihood you um I just want something documented for them.

Let's just put it we we'll just put it in those terms for if my kids ever decide at some point in the future that they want to learn how to trade. I

wanted a series of everything. the full

Webbby rambles on is it's it's for my kids and my grandkids and future grandkids if they ever want to learn how to trade because as I've told before

someone came to me a a legendary trader asked me for a favor to teach one of his kids who was an adult who was older than

me who was thought to know how to trade asked me to help that person learn to the level that they should and I did it and it always stuck with me and

that person didn't know it that I was asked to do that and I was happy to do it. I would have done it just like the

it. I would have done it just like the cream thing. I would have when I was

cream thing. I would have when I was talking about that and I would have I would have helped out anybody in front of me. That's just how I roll. And he

of me. That's just how I roll. And he

didn't appreciate it. Whatever, dude.

That's your problem. And nor did his buddy. But anyways, is what it is. put

buddy. But anyways, is what it is. put

um you know trying not to just keep going but I'm I'm trying to put this stuff out there

for them and for you guys for you oh I'm clearly going on on too low asleep.

So he had asked me to help this person out and it it always um and I did and um and taught him everything that you know

that I could teach him and that it always bothered me. I'm like wow man I would I would hate for someone I'm never going to my kids or grandkids and if I

was around like there would be nothing that would there nothing that would bring me more pleasure than to teach them. But I don't know if

that's in the card. So that's why I'm doing these is to have that that record there so they can learn from me. And so

you guys are all benefiting from this.

And I it's a dual purpose because I really like helping people. I believe in karma and I just believe in helping others. And so I'm putting this out

others. And so I'm putting this out there. So there's no upside to me in

there. So there's no upside to me in doing this. Zero only downside. So at

doing this. Zero only downside. So at

least don't don't alter what I'm saying.

volume is extremely important. It's just

there's no way to determine clean volume in most cases. There are some cases and we will talk about that in future episodes of which volume I do think is

relatively clean. So that would be in

relatively clean. So that would be in future episodes. But again, put your

future episodes. But again, put your comments, keep up with the positive things because it really keeps me going because these I don't have time for these. I really don't. But I'm really

these. I really don't. But I'm really trying to get this full message out there. And they really

there. And they really really help a lot. Any negative one, one negative one, you know, is like the same as like 100 good ones. So don't be that

negative one, man. Cuz I I don't like I come at you. Like if you put a negative one, I'm coming at you. Um unless it's valid. If you say I'm, you know, I don't

valid. If you say I'm, you know, I don't know, something that's valid, I'll own it. But if it's not, I'm coming at you.

it. But if it's not, I'm coming at you.

Just fair warning. got to keep it balanced and all. Um, it's not 1984, it's 5150. Okay, enough with that. So,

it's 5150. Okay, enough with that. So,

with that, every one of these episodes, we've got to do what? We've got to do a kind act. That is what I ask from you if

kind act. That is what I ask from you if you've watched any of the other episodes that everyone you're on your um on the honor system to do at least one kind

act. You can do more than one kind act.

act. You can do more than one kind act.

You can do them kinds all the time, but really think through and go, I'm doing this kind for webbby and um and and

that'll get you thinking through of just being and it could be small, could be big. People put in some really cool

big. People put in some really cool things that what was it that someone helped like in the snowstorm? from I

think it was like Boston or something like nine of his neighbors or something helped out with the stuff and then other people have gone to like food banks and like just wonderful things that I'm hearing and these are things that may or

may not have happened without this series. So I'm really trying to make a

series. So I'm really trying to make a difference and we can all make a difference and it's just try to do a positive thing for every one of these episodes that you watch and just try to

share share these. Go on Twitter. My

handle is M. Webster1971.

Tag me on it, share it, retweet it, you know, whatever. I really like it's

know, whatever. I really like it's really sad that I did that one about any given Sunday with Bill and it didn't really get many views. And I really thought, man, like if anything would get

views, it would be that. Well, not the first half, but the second half of it. I

didn't. It really didn't. So, I guess whatever. It is what it is. need to

whatever. It is what it is. need to

figure out how to do these better, but like just getting this out is enough.

So, with that, I think it's time for me to go get some freaking dinner. So,

peace out.