To be free.

To not have anyone else set my schedule.

To be in control of my own life.

For me, that happened in January 2026.

BUT

It wasn’t easy.

And it comes with some hidden challenges.

Today, I’m going to show you exactly what you need and some IMPORTANT criteria you need to keep in mind before taking this step.

What Nobody Ever Talks About in Trading

Unfortunately, there’s a major difference between trading full time and living off your trading profits.

And this isn’t mentioned anywhere in the courses that influencers are trying to sell.

You can start trading full-time relatively easily and early on.

But making a living off your trading profits takes many more years and a lot more capital.

How much money you actually need to live off your trading profits

Let’s start with the second most important thing

CAPITAL

Well, this amount is entirely personal.

That is to say

It depends on your fixed and variable costs.

But don’t worry…I won’t leave you hanging.

We’ll run some simulations, and I’ll show you exactly how to calculate how much capital you need.

To run this simulation, we’ll use an average U.S. city as our example.

That is, not the most expensive, but not the cheapest either, in terms of living costs.

Based on current 2025–2026 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Numbeo, and cost-of-living studies, here is the individual annual cost for a single man living in a medium-cost U.S. city (Columbus OH, Indianapolis IN, Pittsburgh PA, Oklahoma City OK)

Let’s take the moderate scenario and say your living expenses are $60,000.

Now we need to calculate how much capital you need to make a living from full-time swing trading.

My recommendation is to never risk more than 5% of your total capital… otherwise, it will eat into your equity curve, and you’ll never be able to grow that account.

Especially in the beginning.

later on, you can become more aggressive depending on your goals, age, etc.

Okay, here comes the hard part.

It’s probably going to hurt when you see this.

But let’s assume you have an average return of 20%.

Which is extraordinary, by the way.

And let’s take 25% of the profits. (Not from the account, but from the profits.)

So:

With a 20% annual return and withdrawing 25% of your profits each year, you need about $1,200,000 starting capital to pull out $60,000 per year.

I know this is soul-crushing…

I know.

You would have expected a smaller amount.

But this is the reality that no guru on Substack or X will tell you.

And keep in mind that I haven’t even factored in taxes…

You don’t believe me.

Let’s run a simulation with 200k in starting capital and an annual withdrawal of 60,000.

You’d use up your account in 7 years...

A fixed dollar withdrawal that is too big relative to capital and edge will destroy the account.

And this simulation is based on the assumption that you will earn a 20% return every year.

Which won’t happen.

You’ll have better years and worse years.

And in 10 years, you’ll have at least one year where you break even, or even worse, a year where you lose money.

And think about it: many people don’t have that $200,000.

And ask yourself if $20,000 is enough.

Maybe it is for day trading.

BUT

Don’t despair,,,there’s still a way!

What should you do?

You have 3 options:

Both are good options.

But the easiest one is to build another source of income and reduce your living expenses.

By its very nature, swing trading gives you more time.

Time you can use to start a part-time venture.

That way, you won’t overtrade and you’ll let your account compound.

AND

There’s another hidden benefit.

WHEN YOUR INCOME DOESN’T DEPEND SOLELY ON TRADING

you’ll be mentally freer and able to risk your capital more effectively.

It is much harder to improve your performance than to find another revenue stream.

So now that I’ve defined that, I want you to understand that there’s a difference between:

Trading for a living and trading full time.

It’s much harder to trade for a living because you need a minimum of 1 million in capital.

Another question that probably comes to mind is:

After how long of profitability should I quit my job?

I said I’d tell you later what’s more important than capital.

Well, it’s: Profitability.

Why would you?

It will ruin you mentally, emotionally, and socially.

Instead, I recommend a minimum, an absolute minimum, of 6 months of profitability.

So you can get through 2 quarters.

But to be honest, even that’s not enough.

I’d say two years of profitability is a much better track record.

Personally, I quit my job after almost three full years of profitability as a swing trader and several more years as an investor.

You also want to have savings covering at least two years that you can fall back on in case your full-time trading doesn’t work out or you have a bad year.

That way, you won’t have to dip into your initial swing trading capital.

And take my word for it.

It really does affect you mentally.

Even though we’re in a massive bull run, in 2026 it wasn’t easy for me to execute trades.

Because money becomes scarcer, and you start to adopt a very conservative mindset.

Which comes with two sides to it.

ALSO

This is something almost nobody talks about, but it matters more than you think.

Fix your personal life before going full time trading

If your life is chaotic, your trades will reflect that.

If your financial situation is unstable, you’ll feel pressure with every decision.

If your relationships are strained, this will affect your focus and emotional control.

Trading is, in and of itself, already mentally demanding.

When you add personal stress to the mix, it becomes exponentially harder to stay disciplined and consistent.

That means:

Because once you commit to trading full-time, there’s no turning back.

You can’t blame a job, a boss, or external circumstances.

It all comes down to you and your decisions.

And if your foundation is weak, trading will expose it very quickly.

Now that you’ve checked off all these points, there’s just one more thing you need to get started

Equipment & Tools for Swing Trading

I didn’t start with this because it’s the most obvious thing.

You need a good chair to sit in for hours.

Don’t skimp on this one.

• You need a desk.

• And at least one monitor.

I personally have two monitors. I don’t think I need more than that.

But I couldn’t have done what I do with just one monitor.

Also,

Don’t skimp on your internet plan.

• You need a good, fast internet plan.

As for tools, you’ll need:

- a trading journal

- charting/scanner software

- a good broker.

That’s it.

These will probably cost you around $2,000 in total.

You’re now ready to start swing trading full-time, or part-time if you still don’t have the required capital.

This isn’t easy for most people.

Not like it’s portrayed online.

Unfortunately, the reality is that you can’t start full-time with 10k, or even 100k.

But that shouldn’t discourage you.

You can start anytime while holding down a job.

Work hard.

Be consistent.

And your dream will come true.

I know this because I’m living it.

You just need to start

Look, I didn’t write this to discourage you.

I wrote it because I wish someone had been this honest with me before I made the leap.

If you’re serious about building toward that freedom, whether you’re still working a job or already trading part-time, PRO is the next logical step.

You’ll get the structure, the accountability, and the real-time insights that most traders never get to see.

And right now is the best time to start.

The yearly plan is 49% off. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, this is the moment.

See you inside.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

To see exactly when I buy and what I sell in real time, join the private Discord server. (*available only to PRO members)

In addition, you’ll find 13 other tickers showing the setups they’re forming, though they still need some time before our entry signal is triggered, nevertheless, you should add them to your watchlist.

Also, below you’ll find my full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners and the weekly market direction (an in-house algorithm created to tell you when it’s time to push and when it’s time to sit on the sidelines).

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

By the time you finish reading this, you will know exactly when to start selling a winning stock.

No more guessing. No more giving back gains.

This isn’t theory or personal opinion.

A researcher named Denis Hamel ran a 13-year backtest across 5,506 U.S. stocks, covering nearly 50 million stock-days from 2012 to 2025.

He asked one simple question: how far above the 50-SMA do stocks actually extend, measured in ATR?
The numbers are brutal… and they should change how you manage every winner from now on.

Here’s what we’re going to cover:

1. The full distribution of extreme ATR extensions (and where almost 70% of them die)

2. Exactly how to use those numbers for your exits (trim levels at 7, 8, 9 and 10+ ATR)

3. A simple way to apply this on any chart in under 10 seconds

4. A high-probability bonus setup that turns the same data into parabolic shorts

What is ATR and what does “extension above the 50-SMA” actually mean?

Before we look at the numbers, let’s make sure the two concepts we’re using are crystal clear.

50-SMA
The 50-day Simple Moving Average is just the average closing price of the last 50 days.
It shows the medium-term trend.

ATR (Average True Range)
ATR measures how much a stock usually moves in a day.
If a stock has an ATR of $2, it means that on a normal day it moves about $2 up or down.

ATR extension above the 50-SMA
This simply answers the question:
“How many normal daily moves is the stock currently above its 50-day average?”

Example:

• Stock price = $100

• 50-SMA = $90

• ATR = $2

The stock is $10 above the 50-SMA.
$10 ÷ $2 ATR = 5 ATR above the 50-SMA.

That’s it.
The higher this number, the more stretched (and statistically dangerous) the move becomes.

Now that you understand the language, the data below will make perfect sense.

What the Numbers Show

Here is the full distribution of extreme ATR extensions above the 50-SMA:

Read those numbers carefully.

Out of every 100 times a stock reached an extreme extension above the 50-SMA, almost 70 of those times it stopped at 7 ATR.

Only 22 made it to 8.

Less than 6 made it to 9.

The odds of continuation drop dramatically with each level.

What This Means for Your Exits

The moment a stock reaches 7 ATR above the 50-SMA, you are statistically in a zone where most extensions end.

That does not mean you sell everything.

It means you start trimming.

Here is how I think about it:

• At 8 ATR: Trim at least 20-30% of your position. The odds are stacked against further extension.

• At 9 ATR: You are now in the top 6% of all extreme moves. Tighten your stop aggressively or unload a big chunk.

• At 10 ATR and beyond: You are in rare air. Less than 2% of extreme moves ever get here. If you still have a full position, you are gambling, not trading.

The goal is not to catch the absolute top.

The goal is to protect the majority of your gains while the probabilities are still in your favor.

The Real Edge Is in What You Keep

The edge comes from how you manage the trade once it is in your favor.

A stock up 8 ATR above its 50-SMA has already done the hard work for you.

Your job at that point is not to get greedy. Your job is to lock in the majority of that move before the odds flip.

Think about it this way: if 69% of extreme extensions stop at exactly 7 ATR, and you consistently hold through that level looking for more, you are going to give back a large chunk of your open profits on most trades.

Over hundreds of trades, that adds up to a significant drag on your equity curve.

Trim early, trim often at extended levels, and let a small runner go for the outlier move.

That is how you stay consistent.

How to Apply This to Your Trading

You do not need a 50-million-day dataset to use this.

You just need to know where your stock is relative to its 50-SMA, measured in ATR.

On TradingView, this is straightforward to calculate or script.

You can get the indicator here (it’s completely free): https://www.tradingview.com/script/oimVgV7e-ATR-multiple-from-50-MA/

Once you have that number, the rule is simple:

7-8x ATR above the 50-SMA = start trimming, no exceptions.

The data does not care about your conviction.

It does not care how good the chart looks.

It just tells you that 69% of the time, this is where the extension ends.

Use that information.

BONUS - Transform the ATR Extension into a Short Setup

Just as this data tells you when it is time to trim a long position, you can also use it as an indicator for a setup called the Parabolic Short.

This is a very high-probability trade, but it needs to be managed right.

Here are a few examples.

AXTI showed 11x ATR above the 50-SMA. Guess what happened next. It dropped 44%.

At the time of writing this, CAR is sitting at a 24.7x ATR multiple above the 50-SMA.

What do you think happens next after 15 green candles and just one red one?

Here’s the answer:

82% drawdown.

The data is clear.
Most extensions die at 7 ATR.

If you want more frameworks like this, real-time examples, and a community of traders who actually manage winners the same way, join the Pro community.

And right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

This way, you’ll learn to recognize them faster as well.

On top of that, in this special edition I’ve posted 18 charts I like and believe are setting up for another leg higher.

To see exactly when I buy and what I sell in real time, join the private Discord server.

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

What initially drew me to him was his broad perspective on both the market and life.

I couldn’t believe this guy was in his twenties.

And that’s due to two factors, in my opinion:

1. starting early in life. (He started trading when he was just 13 years old.)

2. a life full of challenges, as he himself says: “Suffering can be a great motivator.”

Today I’m sharing the most powerful lessons from the trader who made millions in just few years.

According to market wizard book From January 2020 through December 2025, Lukas compounded at an average annual rate of 309.3%, while keeping maximum drawdown to 35.5%.

Lukas has for sure one of the most extraordinary performance records in modern retail trading.

These are my notes after reading Market Wizards by Jack Schwager.

Trading Lessons from Lukas Frohlich

Perhaps the biggest “secret” to finding alpha (or the so-called “edge”) is revealed right at the beginning of the interview, when he is asked how he decides what to buy or sell.

Lukas answers between the lines:

“I don’t mind volatility and chaos in the markets because I think that is where mistakes are made, which creates opportunity.”

Lukas Frohlich

He is referring to the fact that traders can identify market inefficiencies here and exploit them.

Many shy away from volatility as it can seriously damage your account.

However, volatility often reveals the emotions of market participants, and emotions do not represent calculated decisions; they are inefficient, they lead to errors, and this is not likely to change anytime soon.

How Lukas Frohlich Got Started in Trading

Early in his career, Lukas would short small-cap stocks that gapped up sharply.

What set him apart from others in this field was that:

“ I analyzed SEC filings, identifying companies with an impending working capital problem. I also analyzed news releases that caused the stocks to rally to determine which were bogus and which might indicate a turning point for the company.”

Lukas Frohlich

He placed short trades based on his own research and used stop-loss orders to limit losses.

When asked how he chose his stop-loss levels:

“I had multiple ways of stopping out. Sometimes I would use a new daily high as a stop. Other times, I would set the stop a certain percentage above my entry price. I also used standard deviation-based moves above the opening price as a stop—a method I was fond of because it adjusted to market volatility.”

Lukas Frohlich

But the interesting part is that he doesn’t get stuck in the “small-cap stocks” space like most traders do.

It’s interesting because I know how difficult it is to adapt and keep learning once you’ve found success in a particular area.

But he’s not like everyone else, he manages to recognize that scalability becomes an issue once your account grows past seven figures, and in 2020, he shifted his focus to mid-cap stocks.

And that’s what I want to talk more about here, since we mainly swing trade mid-cap and large-cap stocks.

The mid cap era

What makes it even more impressive is that, for mid-cap stocks, he uses breakouts on the long side.

Imagine you’ve been used to going short your entire career, you even have “The Short Bear” as a nickname, but you don’t let that define you, and you do a complete 180-degree turn toward the long side.

“The mid-cap breakout trade is a specific strategy that works during strong bull markets and outperforms almost anything in the 7th–9th inning of a bull market, during the euphoria phase.”

Lukas Frohlich

He manages to identify the bull market that is taking shape in 2020, the biggest opportunity in the last 12 years, and capitalizes on the investors’ euphoria..

“I traded stocks with a market cap in the $1 to $5 billion range, since these are the stocks that tend to move the most when they move. I also preferred stocks with smaller floats, as smaller floats mean greater potential for explosive upmoves.

I focused on themes and stories that were being hyped on social media.”

Lukas Frohlich

If you look at my previous post, where I talked about how I find the next winners, that’s exactly the approach Lukas uses.

He is aware of the market environment (the euphoria phase) and knows it’s time to push.

Then he identifies the themes and sectors that are in an uptrend.

Next, he filters stocks based on his setups; he prefers stocks valued between 1 and 5 trillion because they have enough volume and liquidity for him to enter with his account, and smaller floats because they have greater potential to skyrocket.

I wanted to see the stock consolidate for a while before heading to new highs. Ideally, the stock would trade in the upper 50% of the consolidation before breaking out.

Lukas Frohlich

This is pretty much what a stock should look like before it skyrockets.

Join a community of swing traders united by a single goal: Freedom!

+2,918% cumulative return (Jan 2024 – Jan 2026)

And Lukas doesn’t buy just any stock simply because it meets his stock criteria.

No, he looks for a catalyst.

There are many potential catalysts: a positive earnings report, the company rolling out new products, favorable government policy, and so on.

To increase the likelihood that this trade will be successful, you need relative volume. And that relative volume often comes hand in hand with a catalyst.

Another very important filter for me is the 200MA.

You often send me all kinds of tickers and ask for my opinion.

As long as that ticker is below the 200MA, don’t touch it. There’s no trade.

If you study the tickers that have seen the biggest gains in recent years, you’ll notice that the majority of the move happened above the 200MA.

So you won’t lose anything, in fact, it’ll save you from trouble, just as Lukas says:

if you wait to buy until the price gets above the 200-day moving average, you can reduce the likelihood of getting into big trouble.

Lukas Frohlch’s entry, stop-loss, and take-profit strategy

One thing I personally think I should work on more is adding to my position.

What’s interesting here is that Lukas uses pyramid positioning

“Typically, I tried to start with about two-thirds of my intended position.

When my initial entry was pre-breakout, I often used the breakout as a spot to add a pyramid position.

I used pullbacks to the 20-day EMA as entry points. I also added within a new consolidation that might form after an upswing.”

So he starts small, and then adds to his position incrementally as the price moves in his direction.

His goal is to be at the beginning of a major trend. And if he succeeds in doing that, he can significantly increase the size of his position.

If a new setup presents itself within the trade, Lukas isn’t afraid to add to his position, as he’s prepared to sacrifice his initial profits if the trade doesn’t work out.

I would add the amount of stock such that if the stop was hit, the loss on the added position would exactly offset the remaining open profits on my prior long position at that point.

if a pyramid addition didn’t work as expected in short order, the entire trade would be dead to me, and I would get out.

When asked where he puts the brake, Lukas replies

If I were buying within a consolidation anticipating an upside breakout, I would use a stop below the consolidation. If I were entering on a breakout, my stop would be below the low of the breakout day.

To take profits, I use either the 10MA or the 20MA, but Lukas uses the EMA, which is the exponential moving average that takes price action into account.

As the move progressed and I was well ahead on the trade, I would use a stop below the 20-day EMA initially and the more sensitive 9-day EMA if the move turned parabolic.

The Disadvantages of This Strategy

When he started talking about the challenges of strategy, I could totally relate.

I believe that the hardest part of the vast majority of strategies that involve a discretionary component is patience.

Being able to do nothing during unfavorable periods.

And Lukas puts it best:

“Being able to step away when the market environment is not suitable is the hard part in applying this strategy.

I used to think big money was made by being very active as a trader, but now I believe it’s made by sitting on winning positions.”

I’d like to wrap up with a little motivation from Lukas and how he managed to get through the tough times in his trading career:

Lukas isn’t just a trader with extraordinary results, he’s living proof that discipline and adaptability beat raw talent in the long run.

He started shorting small-caps at age 13, then had the courage to admit when his strategy was no longer scalable and make a complete 180-degree shift to going long on mid-caps, right in the midst of market euphoria.

What strikes me most about him isn’t the 309% annual return, but his mindset: “Big money is made by sitting on winning positions.”

In a world where everyone wants to do something every day, he tells you plainly: big money is made by having the patience to let good trades run.

For him, trading isn’t just about money… it’s about freedom.

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

I know how I feel right now, and how many of you are probably feeling the same way.

The markets are chaotic, the setups aren’t working the way they used to, and my account balance is dropping.

Frustration, doubt, and sometimes even anger set in.

But I want to remind myself of one essential thing: I’ve been through this before.

Chopiness is part of the cycle.

Drawdowns aren’t a sign that I’ve “lost my edge,” but proof that I’ve been in the market long enough to experience them.

The best traders aren’t the ones who avoid drawdowns, but the ones who weather them without compromising their discipline or capital.

I need to take a breath and accept reality. This isn’t the time to fight the market. It’s time to protect myself

To reduce risk.

Filter my setups. Take only the clearest ones, the ones with the highest probability.

Take a break if needed.

Reread my journal. Review the last 20–30 trades. Did I deviate from the rules? Or is it just normal variance? The answer will show me the way

This period will pass. The markets will calm down, trends will return, and my edge will find fertile ground again. But only if I’m here when it happens.

I won’t increase my positions. I won’t change my strategy. I’ll protect my capital, stick to the process, and let time do the rest.

I’ve been through this before. I’ll get through this too.

This is a message I wrote for myself in my journal, but I felt it would help many of you, so I decided to start this issue of the newsletter with it.

Below I’ll write about the next opportunities I see, which positions I’d like to add to, and the weekly market direction.

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

And it’s all thanks to the idea generator = that is, a scanner.

This scanner essentially scans the entire market and provides me with trading ideas based on the filters I select.

I have a total of 5 scanners, and today I’m going to share 4 of them with you.

(*We use the 5th one in the PRO community.)

And I’m not just going to share the links, I’m also going to teach you how to use them and what to look for.

All the links are to Finviz, and you don’t need a premium account to access them…they’re completely free.

Before I give you the links, I want you to understand how I come up with trading ideas.

How I Come Up with Trading Ideas - A Top-Down Approach

A good trading idea doesn’t start with a setup.

It starts with the market.

The first thing I analyze is: how are the major indexes performing?

• Is the market in an uptrend?

• Is it in a downtrend?

• Is it choppy, with no clear direction?

This step is essential.

William O’Neil studied market behavior from 1900 to the present.

One of his conclusions was:

3 out of 4 stocks are moving in the same direction as the overall market.

That’s why you always need to pay attention to the overall context.

You might have the best setup on a chart. But if the market comes under heavy selling pressure, your odds drop significantly.

A simple way to gauge market strength for long side: If the 10-day MA is above the 20-day MA and the VIX is below 20, you can go push.

If the 10-day MA is below the 20-day MA and the VIX is above 20, reduce your position size and consider staying in cash.

Identify the strong group

Once you understand how the market works, the next step is to identify the groups that are showing strength.

Most emerging themes move in groups.

For example, if NVDA starts to move, it’s very likely that AMD or MU will join the move as well.

Your job is to identify the group’s leader.

Why?

Because, historically, leaders tend to deliver higher returns than laggards.

At the same time, when the group starts to weaken, leaders tend to hold up better. Laggards usually fall more sharply.

A simple way to track sectors is to have a separate watchlist with the following ETFs:

• XLK – Technology

• XLY – Consumer Discretionary

• MAGS – Magnificent 7

• XLC – Communication Services

• XLI – Industrials

• XLRE – Real Estate

• XLU – Utilities

• XLB – Materials

• XLF – Financials

• XLP – Consumer Staples

• XLE – Energy

• XLV – Health Care

Basically, here you have all the important sectors, plus the Mag 7.

Analyze them one by one.

Look for sectors that are trending upward. Look for those that have relative strength compared to the market.

Only then do you move on to the next step.

Individual Stocks: Finding Setups

I’ve shared all the setups I use here:

Many traders believe that the setup is the most important thing.

In reality, it is the least important of the three elements:

1. General market

2. Group or sector

3. Individual setup

What increases your probability of a successful trade the most is the context.

What is the market doing?

What is the sector doing?

Is your stock a leader or a laggard?

The setup isn’t a magic formula. It isn’t the only reason a trade works.

Its main objective here is to define your risk.

It helps you avoid random trades made without a clear plan.

For example:

• In an undercut and rally setup, the stop-loss can be placed below the key level where the undercut occurred.

• In an earnings gap (EP), the stop-loss can be placed below the low of the day (LOD).

• In a flat base breakout setup, the risk can be defined below the pivot or below the relevant support level.

The setup gives you a clear point of invalidation.

That’s its real value.

You don’t enter a trade just because it “looks good.” You enter because you have a favorable context, a leader from a strong group, and a clear level at which your trade is invalidated.

Search for relative strength

Another extremely important factor is relative strength.

You want to find stocks that outperform the market and outperform the rest of their sector.

During good times, these tend to be the first to break out.

During difficult times, these tend to hold up better.

What scanners do I use?

1. CANSLIM , a scanner that provides stocks fitting William O’Neil’s strategy.

Link to the scanner: Link

Developed by the legendary William J. O’Neil, CANSLIM is the ideal formula for identifying top-performing stocks.

This filter helps us identify market leaders, companies with excellent fundamentals and momentum, poised for a potential breakout.

The filters are designed to highlight stocks that meet the golden rules:

• Market Capitalization & Liquidity: Market Cap > $2B

• Average Volume > 2M.

We avoid illiquid companies and focus on those where we can enter and exit cleanly.

• Aggressive Growth: Sales Growth Q/Q and TTM > 25%.
  We look for companies that are generating massive revenue right now.

• Institutional Transactions > 0.

  This confirms that funds and banks are accumulating the stock (a vital criterion in CANSLIM).

• Price near the highs of the last 20 and 50 days.

True leaders hit new highs, we’re not looking for stocks on sale.

Use this scanner to create your weakly watchlist.

Look for clear consolidation patterns on the chart (Cup and Handle, Flat Base).

Buy Point: Enter when the price breaks through resistance on high volume.

Here’s an example of a trade I took using this scanner.

HPE appeared in this scanner in April before it skyrocketed.

2. A scanner that finds the hottest stocks, I check this daily.

You can access it here: Link

Focused on identifying the “hottest” stocks, ideal for aggressive momentum trading and potential short squeezes.

This scanner identifies stocks with explosive performance, a small float, and huge market interest.

Here are the filters:

Small Float: Float < 500M.

There are few shares available for trading.

When demand increases, the price easily skyrockets due to limited supply.

Explosive Momentum: Performance: Quarter +30%.

The stock has already risen massively in the last quarter, confirming its status as a short-term market leader.

Short Squeeze Potential: Short Float > 20%.

Many traders are betting against the stock. If the price continues to rise, they will be forced to buy to cover their positions, fueling an even more dramatic price surge.

Volume and Liquidity: Average Volume > 2M and Current Volume > 1M.

There is sufficient liquidity to ensure good order execution.

Institutional Accumulation: Institutional Transactions: Positive.

In addition to retail investors, “big money” is also supporting the rally.

Volatility: Volatility: Weekly – Over 5%.

We are looking for significant price movements, which are essential for swing trading.

How I Use It

Unlike CANSLIM, here we focus more on market psychology and supply-demand imbalances, targeting stocks prone to rapid price surges.

I check this watchlist daily.

Watch for Pullbacks: Look for technical patterns such as “bull flags” or tight consolidations after the initial +30% move.

Don’t buy the stock when it’s already overextended.

RKLB appeared in this scanner, where I captured a nearly 100% move using the “undercut and rally from the 50MA” technique.

3. A screener that identifies stocks forming bases at beaten-down levels.

Here is the link to the scanner: Link

This scanner, “Bases at Beaten-Down Levels,” looks for stocks that have been heavily sold off but are beginning to form a base.

The idea is simple: potential for a rebound.

What the scanner filters for

• Small-cap: Market Cap > $300M.

  It avoids micro-caps but remains in the riskier and more volatile segment.

• Weak recent trend: YTD performance down.

  It looks for stocks that have lagged behind and could be “reversed” by the market.

• Well Below Highs: 200-Day SMA: price 20–20% below, and 52-Week High/Low: 30% or more below.

  This indicates the stock is still “beaten down,” not already overextended.

• Minimum Liquidity: Average Volume > 1M and Current Volume > 1M.

  You want enough volume for the move to be tradable.

• Good volatility: Weekly > 4%.

  We’re looking for stocks that move enough for a swing trade.

• Above $1: this filters out very cheap junk stocks.

• Positive institutional interest: a sign that it’s not just a retail bounce.

How to Use It

This isn’t a scanner you should “buy blindly.” It’s for finding reversal candidates.

Look for a clear base: tight consolidation, stabilizing volume.

Check for the first signs of a rebound: higher highs, higher lows, volume at the breakout.

Enter only if the base begins to validate itself, not just because the stock seems cheap.

Keep your stop tight; with these stocks, the rebound can be quick, but so can the failure.

DUOL appeared in this scanner after the stock formed a 6-month base and moved toward the 200MA.

4. IPO screener.

Link to the scanner: Link

This weekly scanner looks for recent IPOs with a healthy profile: mid-cap, good liquidity, and institutional interest. All you need to do is check it once at the end of the week.

What the scanner looks for

• Recent IPO: IPO Date: Within the last year.

We’re looking at new listings where price discovery is still underway.

• Mid-cap: Mid-cap.

It avoids extremes and focuses on stocks that can generate significant trading volume.

• Institutional buying: Institutional Transactions: Positive.

A sign that “big money” is coming in.

• Good volume: Average Volume > 1M.

Without liquidity, the signal isn’t worth tracking.

How to use it

At the end of the week, note which stocks remain strong.

Look at the post-IPO structure on the chart: base, consolidation, breakout.

Add only the stocks that are holding up well and have volume to your watchlist.

In this ticker, Q appeared after forming a cup-and-handle pattern and then creating a base where the previous all-time high became support.

Bonus: How to Scan for the Best Opportunities and Be Early for the Rotation

I have another tactic that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere.

But it will give you a huge advantage.

First, go here and check out the top 10 best-performing industries sorted by week.

At the time of writing this article, here’s what it looked like for me:

Now the next step is to use this scanner I created, and all you have to do is change the industry based on which one is the top-performing industry that week here:

In other words, if “Silver” is in first place, you’ll select “Silver”; if it’s “semiconductors,” you’ll select “semiconductors,” and so on.

Then you take the tickers that appear there, add them to a watchlist, and start running them through the filters of the strategy we use in the Freedom Trades community.

Another thing to pay attention to here is “Relative Volume.”

If you see that an industry has an RVOL above 2, as in the example above, it’s clear that a rotation is taking place in that sector at the time of the scan.

This is valuable information because often a capital rotation doesn’t last just a week, it can last for several quarters.

Make sure to switch industries as I mentioned earlier and check them before the market closes or after it has closed, not in pre-market trading.

If you have a job, or simply can’t devote a lot of time to it, which is the norm for the vast majority of us who do swing trading.

You don’t have to check all of them every day.

It’s enough to go through them once a week, over the weekend, add the relevant stocks to a main watchlist, then filter from there and build your focused list.

If some of the screeners don’t return any tickers, it’s because you’re checking them during the pre-market session.

!!! These screeners are meant to be checked before the market closes or immediately after closing.

Join a community of swing traders united by a single goal: Freedom! +2,918% cumulative return (Jan 2024 – Jan 2026)

The results filtered through this process are exactly the ideas I include every Saturday in High Probability Trades.

You can access this week’s edition below:

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

After Trillium, he traded his own account, which was even more profitable: he made $71 million in five years.

His name is Lance Breitstein, and these are my notes after reading the newest Market Wizards book by Jack Schwager.

Personally, I instantly resonated with Lance when he said:

“My upbringing gave me a certain level of grit and determination to succeed.”

Lance Breitstein

I believe I have a huge advantage because of the things I’ve lived through. They shaped me and prepared me for the trader I am today and the trader I will become tomorrow. Not everyone is built to sustain this kind of life.

I do believe this plays a big role in your trading success.

That’s why I always recommend that, when you build your trading strategy, you build it around yourself. You’ll gain a massive edge if you truly know yourself.

Your life philosophy and your attention span will guide you toward your right trading style.

For example, Lance’s philosophy was:

“My general philosophy is that the highest probability trades will occur in the shortest time frames. But that advantage comes at a tradeoff to scalability.”

Lance Breitstein

Breitstein argues that shorter‑term trading can offer the biggest edge, and his results support that view.

This philosophy led him to trade on a 2‑minute timeframe.

If you don’t truly believe this, if you don’t genuinely internalize it, you will never find success with his strategy, because you can’t be Lance, you can only be you.

Like all the other great traders, Lance didn’t become profitable overnight , not after a few weeks or even a few months.

He actually had 11 consecutive months of losses.

When asked what contributed to his success as a profitable trader, Lance says:

“I knew I needed to experience more repetitions of real-world situations. So, I recorded my screens, and then, on nearly every Sunday for 10 years, I would go into the office to rewatch trading sessions.”

Lance Breitstein

Just like every professional athlete reviews their games, he watched his trades, observed how he performed, took notes on key moments, and tried to correct his mistakes the following week.

How many of you are willing to go through that kind of work? Many of you don’t even have a trading journal.

Another thing that caught my attention was how Lance measured his progress in the first year, when he wasn’t yet profitable:

It’s not just about the P&L, which is a lagging indicator. Is your thought process improving? Are you making fewer mistakes? Are you doing a couple of things better? Are you getting less bad?

Lance Breitstein

In other words: follow the process, not the outcome.

If the process is correct, the outcome will come. The outcome is a byproduct of your habits.

Every day, my sole goal was to improve and learn so that I could be a little bit better the next day. That’s all I cared about.

Lance Breitstein

For the vast majority of people, to be honest, you shouldn’t even be thinking about the money for the next three years.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore it.

You should practice proper risk management at all times.

Lance’s favorite setups

After 18 months, Lance finally becomes a break‑even trader.

And then, one day, all those reps, all that knowledge, and all that consistency come together…and he becomes profitable. What happens next is history.

Lance goes on to make $46 million in net profits at Trillium.

And many of his trades are triggered by news.

“The skillset for these types of trades entails having the experience to recognize which headlines are material to the price of a stock and the ability to process and act upon the headline very quickly.”

So experience + speed = his positive EV (expected value)

“For intraday trades, I use a two-minute bar intraday chart. I also use three-month and three-year daily charts for a broader perspective. intraday charts drive 70% of my trading decisions”

From what I’ve read, one of Lance’s favorite setups is the exhaustion gap.

An exhaustion gap is essentially a euphoric move that comes with extremely heavy volume on that day.

ou’ll also see it referred to as “trend exhaustion.”

“It is a euphoric move on high volume that culminates with a price gap on the final day. On Day A, the market moves up on high volume. On Day B, the market has another big upmove on high volume. On Day C, the market has a third consecutive large upmove on high volume. Finally, on Day D, there is a wide upside gap at the open on even higher volume. That is the day of pure euphoria when everyone who is short or looking to buy capitulates and buys indiscriminate of the price, the trend exhausts itself, and prices begin to retrace. That is the day I am looking for a major price reversal.”

I intentionally chose to show you a different ticker than the one Lance mentions in the Market Wizards book, because I want you to read the book and I don’t want to spoil it for you.

However, this example I found is just as valid as the others.

And the same thing applies to shorting a trend exhaustion, you can use this setup for longs as well.

In the case of longs, it’s even better, because theoretically the upside is unlimited.

Lance also gives a small hint about how you can increase your expected value.

“I generally want to be trading in the same direction as the price swing triggered by the news. News often increases the probability of a trade working.”

He doesn’t want to fight the trend.

Meaning, if a stock has a significant catalyst that day, he won’t be looking for an exhaustion trade, because that just adds more fuel to the fire.

The smartest move then is either to take advantage and trade with the trend, or to stay away from the moving train.

Another one of Lance’s favorite setups is capitulation trades.

It’s similar to an exhaustion gap, but in this type of trade you don’t necessarily need to see a gap.

Capitulation trading is about identifying a moment when market participants finally give up and exit their positions aggressively, usually after an extended move.

In a sell‑off, it means holders panic‑sell at almost any price because the pain of holding has become unbearable.

That creates a final burst of heavy supply; once those weak holders have sold, price can stabilize or reverse.

Capitulation can often occurs near a short‑term low (or high), but it is not a guaranteed bottom. (or top)

In my opinion, CAR is an excellent example:

Notice that none of these opportunities are the kind that happen every day.

These are A+type setups, and until these setups that will significantly compound your account show up, you need small base hits/ and, even more important, patience.

You cannot force this type of trades.

Just as Lance himself says:

You can never impose your will on the market. The market doesn’t care if you have a mortgage payment due. It doesn’t care if you want a new car. It doesn’t care if you want to set a new firm record. The market demands you size your trades objectively based upon expected value.

Join a community of swing traders united by a single goal: Freedom! +2,918% cumulative return (Jan 2024 – Jan 2026)

And finally, I want to leave you with one last quote, where Lance is asked why he succeeded while so many others fail in trading.

“You need a level of intellect to understand the concepts. You need a passion for the job. You need a powerful why. I think for many successful people, their why comes from trauma, whether from their upbringing or something else. Having a powerful why was a huge factor for me.”

Lance Breitstein

The lessons from Lance Breitstein are not about copying his strategy. They are about developing your own edge through repetition, discipline, and deliberate practice.

That is exactly what I try to help traders do inside PRO.

You’ll get access to my swing trading strategy, real-time trade alerts, market scans, and a private Discord community where we focus on finding high-quality setups, managing risk, and staying patient when the market offers nothing worth trading.

If you’re serious about improving your process and want a structured environment to help you stay consistent PRO is the next step.

The yearly plan is currently 49% off, so you can get the full experience while paying less than the monthly rate.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

See you inside :)

PS: I highly recommend reading Jack Schwager’s new book.

It’s packed with even more insights and lessons than Lance’s, and on top of that, it includes charts you can reference when the trader explains a concept.

They have personally helped me a lot in my trading career.

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

Nevertheless, we managed to position ourselves in two key leading names in semis and two in the software group.

Below I’ll write about the next opportunities I see, which positions I’d like to add to, and the weekly market direction.

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades with here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

His name is Kristjan Kullamägi, better known as Qullamaggie.

These are my notes after reading Market Wizards by Jack Schwager.

Trading Lessons from Qullamaggie

Qullamaggie is the trader who inspired a new generation of retail traders.

He showed the world that it’s possible.. that you can come from any corner of the planet and still achieve financial freedom.

He proved you can make millions through hard work and a bit of brainpower.

How did Kristjan Kullamagi started trading?

Kristjan Kullamägi’s interest in trading began while working as a security guard at Nasdaq Stockholm, leading him to pursue it with intense commitment despite early inexperience.

He blew up three accounts before becoming consistently profitable on his fourth attempt, eventually transitioning from day trading to swing trading with greater success.

Over a decade, he grew a $5,000 account to over $100 million, even while regularly withdrawing funds.

However, in 2022 he lost more than half his account due to rule-breaking during a market downturn, later reflecting on his mistakes with honesty and humility.

Qullamaggie’s favorite setup is the Episodic Pivot.

He describes the key components of an Episodic Pivot as follows:

“The three ingredients for an episodic pivot are a major news item, a big gap up, and a huge increase in volume. When all three conditions are met, a stock can experience an explosive price move, especially in a bull market environment.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

As you know, EPs are also part of the setups I have in my own playbook.

To catch them is actually very simple:

Create a screener with the following filters:

And you’ll watch this scanner in the pre‑market.

This way you’ll also avoid low‑quality setups and penny stocks.

I like to trade only stocks that are trading above the 200‑day moving average.

I consider “EP quality” stocks to be those that open with at least a 10% gap up.

“The best episodic pivot trade is a neglected stock. Ideally, you want a stock that has been going sideways for a long time—months, even years—and then suddenly, it has 10 times its average daily volume.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

Here Kristjan is referring to bases, you know the saying: “the bigger the base, the higher in space.”

When you look at an EP, you want to see on the chart that the stock has just broken out from a base.

You don’t want to see an erratic chart that’s just whipping up and down.

Here’s an example of the kind of structure you want to see:

“when stocks make explosive moves, most of the move is over in three to five days.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

That means he likes to trim into strength.
A good way to do that is to sell one‑third of your position during the first 3 to 5 days after the EP has occurred.

“you want to focus on leading stocks. One way to identify those stocks is to scan for the 1% or 2% stocks with the largest upmoves in the past one, three, and six months.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

Usually, the stocks that experience episodic pivots are the ones that are already leading stocks.

What he means is that you have a much higher probability that the trade will be a winning trade if it’s a leading stock in a group that has strong momentum.

To identify them, again, you simply create a scanner sorted by 1‑, 3‑, and 6‑month performance.

Personally, I like to use only the 1‑month combined with the 3‑month performance — that way I capture the more recent leaders.

“you can enter on a price move above the opening range or above the high of the first 5-, 30-, or 60-minute bars. The longer the time range used for the entry signal, the worse the entry price, but the lower the risk of entering on a false breakout.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

Kristjan is referring exactly to the tactic I use in Freedom Trades, namely the opening range breakout.

Here’s an example of a 5‑minute opening range breakout:

He is making a very important observation: the longer the timeframe you use, the higher the probability that the trade will work out.

However, there’s also a downside: you will get a worse entry, and sometimes the trade can take off without you and become overextended.

He also says:

“the market direction is crucial for breakout and episodic pivot trades. Four out of five stocks move with the market. You want the odds on your side.”

That means you need to have situational awareness when you’re buying a stock.

You don’t just buy it blindly because it broke out.

If you want to increase the probability that the trade will work, you need the general market to be moving in the same direction.

Because we already know from William O’Neil that three out of four stocks move in the direction of the overall market.

Join a community of swing traders united by a single goal: Freedom! +2,918% cumulative return (Jan 2024 – Jan 2026)

Holding positions for longer is where the big gains come from. Stocks take time to move. If you want to catch the big moves, you need to increase your time frame.

Kristjan Kullamagi

I have the same philosophy, and that’s why I’m a swing trader.

I believe what really moves the needle in your account are multi‑week runners that compound your equity over time. But for that to happen, you need to hold your positions longer.

In day trading, you take advantage of the repeatable small price fluctuations, whereas in swing trading you’ll catch a bigger move with lower stress.

Plus, you won’t be forced to stare at the screens all day.

“Typically, I will risk 0.5% or less of my account size per trade, but I may risk up to a maximum of 1% on some trades.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

All of those massive gains were achieved while risking less than 1% per trade.

Contrary to what most beginner traders believe, you don’t have to full‑port your account into 0DTE to get massive gains.

Sure, it’s not going to happen overnight, but you’ll definitely sleep better at night.

I even built my own dynamic risk cheat sheet, and it looks something like this:

You have to remember that it’s not a bad trade that will make you blow up your account … it’s your position size.

That’s why they say: “Price will hurt you, position size will kill you.”

So structure your position based on how much you want to risk per trade.

What really helped me and impressed me was his take on trading psychology in this section:

“I started 2020 with $3.5 million and ended the year at $36 million. It was a thousand percent year. Then I ran that $36 million to a high of $105 million, and the last portion of that move from $65 to $105 million occurred in just a month and a half. For a brief period, just a few days, I was over $100 million. You have to understand what that did to my psyche. It made me feel completely detached from reality. I thought, “I’m going to get to $200 million in six months.” I was completely sure of that. I started seeing trading as a video game, which I kept winning. I lost a lot of money because I got completely detached from my methods.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

For me, this was extremely powerful, because trading really does this to you.

The biggest losses tend to come right after the biggest wins.

What happens when you win is you become careless.

This is exactly what happened to me in January: coming off a hot streak in 2024 and 2025, I wanted to push hard into the beginning of 2026, a mistake I’m still paying for halfway through 2026.

Filled with the euphoria of those gains, you start to go a bit blind.

You start bending your rules a little at first, you become obsessed and dependent on winning.

And in trading we know that the best loser wins, you have to accept loss as part of the game.

But when you win a lot, you start believing that the hot streak will last forever.

The way Kristjan managed to get through that big loss was by reminding himself where he started and how much progress he’d made up to that point.

One thing that kept running through my mind while I was reading all this was the question:

What is the secret behind Kullamagi’s success?

Well, he does give us an answer…one that probably won’t be very popular with everyone.

“When I learned to trade, I was in my early 20s, single, and had no responsibilities. I could put in 60 to 80 hours a week for a decade. That’s how I made it.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

It’s “simply” outworking everyone else.

I put “simply” in quotation marks because there’s nothing easy about that.

“I want to look at the trades that worked to reinforce what I should look for.”

Kristjan Kullamagi

He spends tens of hours studying charts, studying what the leaders did, how they moved before they exploded, and which charts showed real relative strength.

That’s what all of us have to do: over time, our brain starts to get better at spotting the right patterns and the right price action.

That’s how we learn, we first observe, then we apply what we observed, and that’s how we build experience.

I want to leave you with one more lesson that Kristjan teaches.

When asked what else contributed to his success, Kristjan answers:

“Find a mentor—a successful trader who can guide you in learning setups. Trading is hard to figure out on your own. Most people never do. A mentor will help you solve a lot of problems right out of the gate.“

Kristjan Kullamagi

I strongly believe that a mentor, a community, or even a trader who’s at the same level as you can help you speed up the process.

First of all, you’ll have accountability and support from people who may already have been through what you’re going through now.

That’s exactly why I created the Pro Membership.

I didn’t want people to spend years figuring everything out alone the hard way, blowing accounts, repeating the same mistakes, and wondering why the big moves keep slipping away.

Inside the Pro Membership you get:

If you are thinking about joining the community, right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

See you inside :)

PS: I highly recommend reading Jack Schwager’s new book.

It’s packed with insights and lessons, even more than those from Kristjan, and it also includes charts you can study while the trader explains each concept.

They’ve personally helped me a lot in my trading career.

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

This week, I fully updated the guide for the Freedom Trades strategy.

I highly recommend that all of you read it again, as it now contains more than 10,000 words with charts and visuals, and it explains the components of the strategy, risk management, and psychology in much greater detail and with more specificity.

This is my performance from previous years.

Copy my complete strategy and start trading these high-probability trades with here:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

Why should you listen to me?

I made every psychological mistake possible.

I chased losses, held losers too long, and revenge traded after big drawdowns. It cost me real money and sleep.

I tested what actually works on my own account and learned from my personal therapy sessions.

Today my results are much more stable because I’ve mastered these three emotions.

Here’s what we’ll cover so you know what to expect.

First I will explain greed, hope, and fear, why they appear and how to manage each one.

Then I will show you how to handle the pain that comes with trading every single day.

The three emotions that control your trading.

In trading, psychology is about three main emotions that you have to manage every single day.

These three emotions are: greed, fear, and hope.

If you fail to manage them, your whole system goes down the drain.

I believe all three of these emotions get triggered in each of us, in some people more easily, in others more intensely, depending on the different experiences and life events we’ve gone through.

Since I’m not a therapist, I’ll speak strictly from my own experience and from what I’ve learned in the sessions I’ve had with my personal psychotherapist.

Greed

The feeling of greed shows up when you want more.

It leaves you dissatisfied when you lose, because you see others winning.

And it also leaves you dissatisfied when you win, because you feel you could have made more.

This cycle keeps repeating until you eventually lose everything, and at that point a new feeling of insecurity is triggered.

In my opinion, greed is the second‑easiest of the three emotions to manage.

This is a common problem for beginner traders, because many of them don’t even “know what they don’t know”.

They get manipulated by influencers on TikTok and YouTube into believing that 500% or 1000% returns are perfectly normal.

So they start their journey thinking they’ll hit those kinds of returns in a very short period of time.

What they don’t realize is that this kind of year is almost certainly an outlier.

In the same way, back in 2024, just as we were coming out of a bear market with extraordinary conditions, I posted an 800% return. That kind of performance is not normal.

A 20% average annual return, year after year, is already phenomenal , you’re beating the index roughly two‑fold.

Not many traders can do that consistently, year after year.

When your expectations are too high, you start chasing those gains, and naturally you begin to take more risk.

It’s only a matter of time before you blow up.

Fixing GREED is simple, but not easy: practice humbleness.

Accept that you’re not special, that 90% of traders aren’t even profitable.

Accept a modest return and focus on the process.

In doing so, you at least give yourself a chance to reach super performance and exceptional returns.

None of the traders who turned out to be outliers, posting returns above 100% per year, set that as their goal.

Their goal was to follow their process.

Be content with what you have.

Meditate, set realistic goals, stop comparing yourself to other traders or friends, and watch how greed starts to fade.

Hope

Hope is, in my view, the easiest emotion to manage.

It usually shows up when you’re sitting in unrealized losses , when your trade is moving against you and price is getting close to your stop-loss, or worse, when you’re not using any stop-loss at all and you’re just hoping it “comes back”.

At that point, all you hope for is to get back to break even; you’re not even aiming to make a profit anymore. (Some traders even start praying. 🙏)

Then, after losing 60% of their capital, they begin to gamble and say: “Okay, now I’ll go all in and recover all my losses.”

They hope that this time it will be different and they just throw themselves into it.

The reason I say hope is the easiest to manage is that this emotion comes from incompetence.

We usually resort to hope when it’s our last option, when we’re overwhelmed by the situation.

No.

You didn’t need hope, because everything was already an automatic, well‑practiced process.

When your palms are sweating, your heart is pounding, you’re anxious, maybe even having panic attacks, your body is giving you signals that you’re not prepared , that, bluntly, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Your body sends all these signals telling you to stop.

Seriously, listen to your body , or your subconscious , it often knows better.

So the solution is simple:

When you know your risk of ruin, your expectancy, your typical percentage drawdown, when you know exactly when your setups appear and when you should stay in cash, you’ll see there’s no reason to lean on hope anymore, because it’s just pure math.

FEAR

I left fear for last because, personally, I consider it the hardest emotion to overcome.

Fear is also deeply personal.

We all have different kinds of fears, triggered by our past experiences and traumas.

In trading, fear comes from the unknown, from the fact that you don’t know the future and have no control over it.

I see fear in trading as closely linked to pain, because you’re afraid of losing money, and that loss will cause emotional pain.

Unfortunately, there is no universal solution for fear.

The only way to manage it is to confront it, you have to take control.

You can’t escape fear; it will always be there. The only option is to reduce its power.

In therapy, fear is often treated through Exposure Therapy, a technique where you create a safe environment and expose yourself to your fear.

You repeat this process until the fear gradually decreases.

All three of these emotions will cause a lot of PAIN.

Once you decide to become a trader, you have to accept that your career and your life will involve pain.

Whoever sold you the idea that it’s “easy money” has misled you.

The world of trading is full of pain.

When you lose, it hurts. When you win, it hurts (you’ll think about how you could have made more). When you miss opportunities because you were on vacation, it hurts.

All of this pain will wear you down mentally.

Your mind and body will be under attack and you will feel miserable.

You need to be brutally honest with yourself and accept certain realities.

Fail to do that, and you’ll lose a lot of money.

Successful traders have something you don’t yet have: experience.

They know how to manage pain. They know it never truly disappears, they just learn to numb it.

It’s like lifting weights: the pain never goes away, even as your muscles grow; you simply get used to different thresholds.

With fear and pain, you’ll fight a very personal battle, every single day.

I hope I haven’t discouraged you, but I wanted to be very real with you and share my experiences.

It took me years to learn how to manage these emotions and to simplify them the way I did in this article.

Understanding this in theory is one thing, applying it in real time with proper position sizing and structured exits is another.

If you are thinking about joining the community, right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.
Click the button, join Freedom Trades PRO with the yearly plan, and come trade with us, in real time.

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Trade Setups of The Week

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“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

Every Saturday we publish a new edition of High Probability Trades.
This week, many charts look interesting, and some tickers have left us some clues.

So if you want to be prepared for the next leg up and be ready to catch the opportunities, this one is for you.

This is my performance from previous years.

I’ve shared my complete strategy.

Copy it and start trading these high-probability trades with context:

High Probability Trades

Full list of tickers generated by my custom scanners:

Read more

So what is risk of ruin?

Risk of ruin is a statistical concept that tells professional traders the probability of them losing their trading account.
Basically, it calculates your chance of losing your trading account with your current strategy.
That's HUGE.
Imagine if you knew you had a 99% chance of losing your money with what you're doing, would you continue?
Of course not, it's just a matter of time until you blow up.
Risk of ruin doesn't necessarily mean you have to lose your entire account balance.
It can be 50%, 80%, or 100% of your account, depending on everyone's risk level.

The math behind risk of ruin

Let’s take an example with 2 traders, Alex and Maya, who both learn the same trading system.

The system wins 56% of the time and has equal average wins and losses.

Both start with $15,000 in risk capital, and “ruin” means losing all of it.

• Alex risks $3,000 per trade, giving him 5 units of risk($15,000 / $3,000).

• Maya risks $1,500 per trade, giving her 10 units of risk ($15,000 / $1,500).

Alex gets ruined after just 5 consecutive losses.

Maya needs 10 in a row to be wiped out.

I will use Perplexity here to visually show you what I mean.

Both traders use the exact same system, same capital, same win rate. The only variable is position size, yet their probability of blowing up differs by more than 3x.

BUT 9% Is Still Too High

Even Maya’s 9% risk of ruin is not acceptable for a serious trader.

Any probability above 0% is essentially a guarantee of eventual ruin, given enough trades.

Think of it this way: if you flip a coin that comes up “ruin” 9% of the time, you will eventually land on it.

Join a community of swing traders united by a single goal: Freedom! +2,918% cumulative return (Jan 2024 – Jan 2026)

How I reduce my risk of ruin below 1%

Now mathematically I know it is not possible to be 0.

However, you can bring it down to 0.4%, which, when rounded, does become 0 percent.

There are 3 ways you can reduce your risk of ruin:

Let’s introduce a third trader: Tom

Alex, Maya, and now Tom all trade the same system: 56% win rate, equal average win and loss, $15,000 in risk capital.

The only difference between them is how much they risk per trade.

Tom simply divides his $15,000 capital by 20 instead of 5 or 10, giving him $750 of risk per trade.

Same system, same edge, but a radically different probability of surviving long enough to let that edge pay off.

You see how just through the simple action of reducing your position size you lower your risk of ruin.

Going from 5 units to 10 units cuts risk from 30% to 9%.

Going from 10 to 20 units cuts it again from 9% to just 1%.

divide your risk capital by at least 20 to get your maximum risk per trade.

For a $15,000 account, that means no more than $750 per trade.

For a $10,000 account, that is $500 per trade.

Alex might generate larger dollar wins when trades go his way, but he carries a 30% chance of blowing up before he ever builds a track record.

Tom wins less per trade in dollar terms, but he has a 99% chance of staying in the game long enough for his 56% edge to work consistently over time.

Successful trading requires you to treat capital preservation as the first priority.

Method 2 - Improving your win rate

With the same 20 units and a 1:1 payoff, bumping your system’s accuracy from 56% to 60% has a massive effect:

Tom at 20 units with a 60% win rate effectively reaches below 1%

0% risk of ruin.

a higher win rate means losing streaks long enough to cause ruin become statistically near-impossible.

Method 3 - Improving your risk to reward ratio

The risk to reward ratio (average win divided by average loss) is arguably the most powerful method of all, because it works even when your accuracy is only 50%.

• 1.1:1 to 1.4:1 payoff ratios still carry meaningful ruin risk (3% to 19%)

• 1.5:1 and above drives risk of ruin to effectively 0%, even at a coin-flip 50% accuracy rate
  
  This means making $1.50 on winners and losing $1.00 on losers is the threshold where survival is mathematically near-certain at 20 units

A warning to traders

Every trader has a statistical risk of ruin, yet most do not know it.

Most are ignorant.

You should not trade, because it is guaranteed you will go bust;

you just do not know when.

It is just a matter of time until you blow up your account.

Please do not start trading until you reduce your risk of ruin to 0%.

You have no chance in this. Please!

How to calculate your own risk of ruin

We will take the exact statistics of our strategy that we use at Freedom Trades and I will use here a tool that I literally found on the first search on Google.

We will define risk of ruin as a 50% drawdown and we will simulate these calculations 1000 times to make sure they are accurate.

These were the results.

Basically, after 1000 simulations we have a chance to hit a maximum drawdown of 33% with an average drawdown of 18%.

Even though our win rate is low, 28%, our reward to risk ratio is high.

That is, when we lose, we lose little, but when we win, we win big.

Now imagine how much profit you could generate if you improved the win rate even further.

This is why I always say, do not focus on strategies that have a high win rate.

The ones that have a low win rate are much more robust.

You can improve the strategy so much further.

NOW

How do you calculate your own risk of ruin?

Very simple, in this tool or table you include

All of this is possible to calculate if you have a trading journal.

That is why I keep saying, journal your trades.

Without knowing your stats, you cannot succeed in this field.

It is the first step.

Remember that.

You have just seen how risk of ruin works and how small changes in risk per trade can be the difference between survival and blowing up.
If you do not want to figure all of this out alone, this is exactly what we work on every day inside Freedom Trades PRO.

Plus, you get:

If you are thinking about joining the community, right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

See you inside :)

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

(*Only realized profits are included here, unrealized profits are not counted in the final calculation, which may result in lagging performance statistics).

This is my performance from previous years.

To better understand the strategy we are following and not to buy blindly without any context, please read and analyze my strategy carefully:

High Probability Trades

Read more

You will stop guessing how many shares to buy.

Most importantly, you will know how to protect your account so one bad trade does not hurt you badly.

I have used this method through winning streaks and losing streaks.

It is the one thing that has kept my account alive and growing.

First, I will show you the biggest mistakes traders make with position size.

Next, I will break down the simple formula I use on every trade.

Then I will walk you through real examples so you can see it in action.

Finally, I will give you a free indicator that you can use before every trade.

What is Position Sizing?

The size can be how many shares, contracts, or coins (in the case of crypto) you buy.

Many traders are obsessed with finding the perfect entry or perfect target point, but there is something far more important: proper position sizing.

Position sizing is, first and foremost, the primary and fundamental way to manage risk.

The biggest mistake traders make

There’s a saying, “Price will hurt you, but size will kill you.”

New traders tend to oversize a trade, hoping to “hit big.”

They want to get rich quick.

They have the mentality: “I just need one 100x, bro, and I’m done.”

When in reality, money is made over time with a steady equity curve.

If you use all your capital on a single trade, you expose yourself to a risk called the “overnight gap.”

An overnight gap occurs when a stock or financial asset opens a new trading session at a significantly different price than the previous day’s close.

This creates an empty, “dead air” space on the price chart because no shares were traded at the intermediate prices while the market was closed.

If you put 100% of your capital into one position and it gaps down 10% overnight, you’ve just lost 10% of your capital…in a single session.

That is not sustainable, and believe me, it happens more often than you’d like.

Oversizing leads to the most serious problems in trading: poor risk management, large drawdowns, and, eventually, blown accounts.

So what is the fix for oversizing??

How to Properly Size Your Trade

Before I share the formula I use, I want you to understand a simple concept.

Your position size MUST be determined by the risk you are taking.

So we always calculate size based on the percentage we are willing to risk.

The risk percentage you use should come from your risk‑of‑ruin calculation plus the Kelly-criterion optimal betting size (I’ll discuss this in detail in a future post).

The higher the percentage risk you choose, the greater the probability of blowing up your account , effectively draining all the cash from it.

That’s what beginners, myself included, didn’t understand at the start.

There are two components we need to consider when determining our position size:

1. The percentage we want to risk.

2. The stop-loss (The level at which our initial thesis becomes invalid.)

These two components will determine our position.

Since we already know number one, I’d like to explain a bit what I mean by number two.

Your strategy will define the stop-loss.

Let me give you a few examples.

If you use support and resistance, your level will most likely be just below the resistance line.

If we take this example on AAPL on the daily time frame:

You notice that price has reached a key level and has just printed a reversal with volume.

Your entry is at 276, and you place your stop loss right below the resistance, at 274.

Now that we have a stop loss and know how much we’re risking, let’s calculate.

With a 10,000‑dollar account and 0.5 percent risk per trade, you can risk 50 dollars on this AAPL setup.

The distance between entry at 276 and stop at 274 is 2 dollars per share.

If you divide 50 by 2, you get 25 shares, that is your correct position size for this trade.

Whether you use support and resistance, moving averages, or highs and lows, you need a level to anchor your stop loss.

Now that we have the components, I’ll show you what I personally use.

How I Implement Position Sizing

As I was saying, we need these two components to determine our position size.

We start with the first one: what percentage of our capital we’re risking.

I’ve built a little framework to explain this better:

As you can see, my risk percentage per trade is dynamic.

It changes based on my performance and my market awareness.

However, if you’re just starting out, I recommend keeping it fixed, because you want as many simple components as possible in your trading.

You’ll run into plenty of problems that you need to solve first, so there’s no point in making things more complicated at the beginning.

Now let’s move on to point 2:

Where do I place my stop loss?

My stop loss is either at the low of the day if I’m in a long position, or at the high of the day if I’m in a short position.

On a chart it looks like this:

Using the 5‑minute opening range breakout tactic allows me to get extremely tight entries.

That way I can size up (even if you have a relatively small trading account) while still risking a very small percentage of the account.

This is how I managed to make 7,140 dollars while risking only 247 dollars.

I wrote about this in more detail here.

This is the secret: you want tight entries so you can size up while risking very little.

Naturally, if you use a wider stop, you WILL HAVE TO reduce your size.

There is a direct relationship between your stop‑loss level and your position size.

Here’s another real example:

Distance between entry and stop is 5.71 dollars, which is about 2.02 percent, and a 4R target would be at 305.52 dollars.

This means you could already have taken profits within 30 minutes, because you would have made four times what you initially risked.

See the power of tight stops and how the math works in your favor?

You’re already looking at a 4x risk‑to‑reward.

And in swing trading, you can reach 40–50R, or even monster trades like 80R

The indicator that automatically calculates your position size

In my attempt to bring as much value as possible to this community, I’ve created an indicator that does all of this automatically.

It calculates your position size based on the low of day and high of day, and on the percentage of capital you want to risk.

And the best part?

It’s completely free.

On the chart, it looks something like this.

The indicator asks for the following inputs:

1. Your account size

2. How much you want to risk per trade

3. Your max position size

Then it displays in real time on the chart the low of day price, the high of day price, and the recommended size for both long and short.

All of this is done automatically, in real time.

It saves you a ton of time and simplifies your trading while keeping your position size consistent, an absolutely essential trait for a beginner trader.

While the free indicator will save you a lot of time and help you keep your position sizing consistent, applying everything correctly in real market conditions is a completely different story.

Many traders still struggle with knowing exactly when to size up, how to adjust risk based on market environment, where to place their stops in live trading, and how to manage the trade once they’re in it.

That’s exactly why I built Freedom Trades PRO.

Inside the community you’ll get:

Instead of applying position sizing alone, you’ll see exactly how it’s used in real trades, with full context.

If you are thinking about joining the community, right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.
Click the button, join Freedom Trades PRO with the yearly plan, and come trade with us, in real time.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

See you inside :)

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

(*Only realized profits are included here, unrealized profits are not counted in the final calculation, which may result in lagging performance statistics).

This is my performance from previous years.

To better understand the strategy we are following and not to buy blindly without any context, please read and analyze my strategy carefully:

High Probability Trades

Read more

First, I show you what “trim into strength” really means.
Then I give you the exact rules to trail the rest of your position.
Last, you get a real example, step by step.

What does “trim into strength” really mean?

The goal is to lock in some profit and lower risk without fully exiting a trade that still has room to run.

Why do we do this?

Because if you don’t sell into strength, you will be forced to sell into weakness.

To know exactly when to sell, we first need to define what strength actually means.

How do we define strength in a stock?

My definition of strength is:

First of all, the condition that price is above the key moving averages is very straightforward and leaves no room for discretion.

The Price is either above them or it is not.

Now let me explain the second point, namely: “when that stock is extended from the 50MA.”

We also need to make this quantifiable, because in our selling rules there should be no room for discretion, as this will affect your decision‑making and ultimately your trading account.

The way I calculate this is by taking the Average True Range percentage (ATR%) of each stock and the percentage gain of the price from the 50MA, and then dividing the latter by the ATR%.

But you don’t have to do all of this manually.

There is an indicator that can do it for you, created and shared by Jfsrev (the one who popularized this thesis), and the best part is that it’s free.

And in real time, the indicator looks something like this on the chart.

In this example, QLYS is extended 11 ATR% multiples from the moving average.

As you can see, its average ATR% is 4.22%, and if you divide the percentage gain from the moving average, which is 47.09%, by 4.22%, you get 11.17 as its ATR% multiple.

Those small black dots above the candles on the chart are printed once the stock exceeds 7 ATR% multiples from the 50MA.

Why above 7? Because, according to backtesting, that is the point at which most stocks tend to experience a pullback.

I will talk more about this backtest and share it with you in a future edition.

So, to summarise before we move to the next part:

We define a stock as being in strength when:

it is above the key moving averages (20MA, 50MA, and 200MA), and

it is above 7 ATR% multiples from the 50MA.

How to Sell a Stock into Strength – Trade System

Now I’ll share with you the exact system we already use in the Freedom Trades community to protect our profits.

And I’ll walk you through how I personally manage a trade depending on which day I’m in the position.

Let’s say I’ve just initiated a new swing trading position.

Day 0 to 4

In the first few days, I start taking 1/3 once the trade reaches more than 3R (R is a unit of risk).

I also take off the first one-third if the move reaches three times the ADR% measured from my entry, because at that point the stock has already delivered a meaningful expansion and I want to pay myself early.

So at least one of these conditions has to be met for me to sell the first third of the position.

By doing this, I eliminate the initial risk I have in the trade and, essentially, the trade becomes risk‑free – meaning that if my stop loss gets hit, I will not have any loss, because I already sold one third.

The goal here is to offset the initial risk.

After Day 5

Once the trade gets past day five, I become more systematic with the exit and sell 10% of the position at each higher multiple when ATR% stretches above the 7x multiple versus its 50MA reference.

After that, I trail the rest using the 10MA as my main stop, and if the stock closes below it at the end of the day, I can close the remaining position.

If momentum is still very strong and I am already sitting on at least a 30% unrealized gain, I can give the trade more room and use the 20MA instead.

I’ve even made a visual for you so it’s easier to understand the tactic.

This system only works well when position sizing and trade selection stay tight, so I cap any single position at 25% of the total portfolio and avoid biotech names because of the higher overnight gap risk.

If a stock is already above 5R, I can move the stop to breakeven.

I also avoid entering a stock that has fewer than five trading sessions left before earnings, and above all, I stay selective and never allow a profitable position to turn into a loss.

A real-trade example of selling a stock into strength

Now I’m going to show you how I made 28R while risking just a single unit of risk.

In practice, I risked $247 and made $7,141, almost 29 times my initial risk.

Below you can see a visual representation of how I managed this trade in HPE stock

And now I’ll show you what the ATR% Multiple from MA indicator looks like.

You can see how, on each strong push higher, it was signalling that it was time for me to trim.

At the peak, the indicator was showing an 18x multiple from the 50MA, so you can clearly see how overextended it was.

And if you look at the HPE chart now, the stock has dropped about 36%.

You absolutely do not want to give back 36% of your profits to the market.

I’ve written in detail about how I managed this trade here, if you want to read more

When you put all of this together, you stop guessing when to sell and start following a clear, repeatable process.

If you are thinking about joining the community, right now is the best time to do it.
The yearly plan is 49% off.
Click the button, join Freedom Trades PRO with the yearly plan, and come trade with us, in real time.

Get 49% Discount with Yearly Plan

See you inside :)

Trade Setups of The Week

If you think this newsletter could help your friends, share it with them so it can reach as many traders as possible.

And here’s the fun part: when you share it, you can unlock special rewards + you will look smart in front of your friends :)

“One trade closer to freedom.”
Vladislav

(*Only realized profits are included here, unrealized profits are not counted in the final calculation, which may result in lagging performance statistics).

This is my performance from previous years.

To better understand the strategy we are following and not to buy blindly without any context, please read and analyze my strategy carefully:

High Probability Trades

Read more