Get a strategy. Get educated. Get motivated.

This is the first step in the How to Make Money Trading Stocks With a Full Time Job series. Read the preface.

I buy earnings winners based on the chart, price action, and short interest.

I don’t invest or gamble; I capitalize on the short term price movement caused by a positive reaction to earnings. Because I don’t bother with EPS or other fundamentals taught by mainstream media and academia, It’s possible my definition of an earnings winner is different from yours. What’s an earnings winner? Here’s a great definition.

The blueprint of my strategy can be followed with three simple actions: Search for volatile stocks, find repeating patterns, then adapt to changing market conditions (more on this in step 3).

I learned my strategy from a professional short seller, and it took a lot of trial and error before I found something that was compatible with my personality. I started trading on the short side, first with pump and dumps, then with Nasdaqs. I eventually moved into a long biased approach and experimented with all kinds of price ranges, catalysts, and chart patterns.

Don’t just buy or short at random times, have a purpose.

No matter the strategy you go with, educate yourself or get a mentor. Take advantage of all the free resources available on the internet to learn the basics of charting, support and resistance, and level 2.
Get specific with your strategy and develop clearly defined rules… Don’t just buy or short at random times, have a purpose.

I learned the basics, advanced topics, and everything in between from the profit.ly community, and other big time traders on twitter. I’ve spent a lot of time and money on my education, and that gives me a huge advantage over a lot of people who are passively playing the markets.

If you want to learn how to conservatively profit from the most volatile stocks in the market, and rapidly grow a small account (less than 100k), I recommend learning from Tim Sykes. He’s a great teacher and a great motivator.