The whole series on one page
Screenshot this. Every number and rule below is explained fully in Volumes 1 to 6.
Twenty words that cover most conversations
- Bull / Bear
- Expecting prices up / down.
- Bid / Ask / Spread
- Buyer’s price, seller’s price, the gap you pay to trade.
- Limit / Market order
- Your price or better / whatever price, right now.
- Stop loss
- Auto-sell at your damage cap. Place it when you enter.
- Volume / Liquidity
- Shares traded / how easily you can exit at a fair price.
- Support / Resistance
- The floor buyers defend / the ceiling sellers defend.
- EPS / P/E
- Profit per share / how many years of it you are paying for.
- Cost basis / Realized
- What you paid / a gain or loss made real by selling.
- Diversification
- Spread out so no single disaster sinks you.
- Index fund / ETF
- Hundreds of companies in one cheap ticket.
The risk math
- The 1% rule
- Risk at most about 1% of your account per trade.
- Position size
- Shares = (account × risk%) ÷ (entry − stop).
- Risk to reward
- Only take trades paying at least 2× the planned loss.
- Daily stop
- Down 2–3% on the day? Close the app.
- Never
- Average down on a day trade, trade rent money, hold TQQQ casually, sell naked options.
Before every buy
- Can I lose this money?
- If no, stop here.
- Do I understand the business?
- One sentence, or no trade.
- Why now, and what makes me sell?
- Entry, stop, target written first.
- Am I chasing?
- Trending + FOMO + urgency = walk away.
- Does the price make sense?
- Fair P/E ≈ growth rate. Far above it, you are paying for perfection.
Reading a red day
- Nasdaq worst
- Rates or tech news squeezing growth stocks.
- Russell worst
- Recession worry hitting small companies.
- All deep red + VIX spiking
- Macro shock. Mostly sit on your hands.
- Mixed, VIX calm
- Rotation, not fear.
- Mild red, VIX flat
- Noise. No story, no action.
Red flags, condensed
- In a stock pitch
- Promoted anywhere, urgency, guarantees, penny-stock miracles, spikes with no news.
- In the financials
- Profit without cash flow, receivables outracing sales, endless one-time items, ballooning share count, debt piling while profit stalls.
- On the earnings call
- Vague guidance after precise years, dodged questions, a new excuse each quarter, blaming short sellers.
The crash protocol
- Remember the pattern
- Belief → leverage → euphoria → shock → panic → capitulation → recovery. Every time so far.
- What survives
- No leverage, cash you do not need soon, diversification, time.
- What dies
- Borrowed money and forced sellers.
- Your job
- Mostly: nothing. Panic selling converts paper losses into real ones near bottoms.
The long game, in four lines
- Mix
- Roughly 110 minus your age in stocks; the rest in bonds. Adjust for nerves.
- Vehicle
- Three broad index funds, or one target-date fund. Stock picks are a small satellite at most.
- Maintenance
- Automate monthly, DRIP on, rebalance yearly, check quarterly.
- Taxes
- Hold over a year when you can, mind the 30-day wash sale, fill retirement wrappers first.
The one-liner. Time in the market beats timing the market; position size beats prediction; and the plan exists to overrule the feeling. Education only, not financial advice.