Matching Your Unique Abilities to Your Trading Strategy and Where We Are in Equities, Rates, and FX

Added: 2026-05-22

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[00:10:24]Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Capital Flows live stream. We have a interesting stream today where we're going to cover market views. We're going to go over all the trades that we've been talking about. We're going to go over some of the trading archetypes that James and I have been talking about. And then also today we also have uh guests on the stream that been meaning to chat with and we're going to go over um all the kind of different views that he's been sharing on Twitter, all the kind of different community he runs. And so, uh, if you guys don't already, um, I believe it's Flowiden, right? Is that how you pronounce it?

[00:11:05]>> Yep, that's it.

[00:11:06]>> Awesome. Awesome. Uh, so appreciate you joining today, man. How are uh how are things uh how are things going on your end? I'm glad we were able to finally have you on and chat.

[00:11:15]>> Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Um, I kind of wanted to do it a couple weeks ago, but I just didn't have time. But yeah, I mean, everything's good. Um Um Oh, sorry. I was on their Discord voice just looking through TE was obviously the one that um we've been flagging a lot. Multiple strikes, nine and a half calls, 11 calls. Um but you know, after that short report from that account or something like that, now it's up like what 35%. But yeah, a lot of mixed mixed flow today. Um obviously PER was a great call out from you Capital and you know, we saw those early on as well.

[00:11:55]Um, you know, I like the $6 range, so that was that was also good. FEL, we saw a lot of flow in that, but that kind of took a big hit. Um, yeah, today's just a lot of kind of mixed flow and obviously with that Nvidia earnings as well. So, >> right on, right on. give give for uh for people who don't know, give the kind of 30 second elevator pitch about kind of who you are, what you're doing, and how you've kind of uh gotten into the space overall, and what what you really focus on in terms of trading.

[00:12:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, um I'm the co-owner of Al's uh Options Traders, uh Discord group, uh with my partner, John. Uh we started this in 2020, but I've been trading since like 2017, 2018. Um and then in 2021 um or mid 2020 I started using uh unusual options activity. So that's that's you know my trading style. I I love using the flow. Um that's how I um find you know my trades. Um you know and that's just what's it called? Yeah. That that's just the way I I trade. Um ours has been I've been doing this for like you know six years gone through you know multiple types of markets. Um and yeah that's that's basically it. Pretty simple.

[00:13:18]>> I love it. I love it. When uh when you think about part of your trading process, >> you know, how do you how do you work down through kind of the filter of coming up with ideas and working through that? um in terms of looking at flow or kind of overlaying some macro stuff or broader you know picture with the markets and things like that. How do you how do you kind of think through that process a little bit?

[00:13:42]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, obviously the first thing I I look at is the flow and then, you know, I see, you know, the type of orders that come in. Um, you know, obviously as a beginner flow trader, you know, a lot of people will just look at the contracts and and see if it's, you know, just because there's a million in premium, you know, they they'll just buy it right away. They won't even look at the chart. They'll just think, okay, well, someone's putting a million dollars in the in the contract thinks that, okay, this is going to this is going to for sure hit.

[00:14:10]So, it doesn't really uh work like that.

[00:14:13]Um, so when I look at the the flow, I have multiple filters, you know, coming from either put selling um out the money contracts, let's say 15 20% out the money with 60 days uh with expiration.

[00:14:25]Those ones are actually pretty effective, especially when the market is hot. Um because, you know, whales don't have that much time with expiration and they're expecting a big move. Um so then once I filter out that kind of flow you know I'll have ETF flow as well but that feels very sporadic. Um you know they could and again any flow trade could be a hedge. You know a lot of people will say like okay this in you know spy put you know it's a very big order and people will think okay someone knows something. It's like no, you don't know the other side of the trade. Like, you know, this this could just be a simple hedge. And you can basically think that every flow is a hedge, right? Even if it's a call, right? But you just got to, you know, take it head on and um and if that flow matches, you know, your your style of trading, you know, if you're an ICT trader, if you're just a, you know, technical trader with, you know, chart patterns and see if that aligns as well.

[00:15:19]So, you know, I'll look at the flow, you know, on specific filters. um making sure the market, you know, as a whole, like you know, if there's bullish flow on a certain stock, but the if the market's looking, you know, pretty weak.

[00:15:31]If it's below certain uh moving averages, then, you know, maybe it's probably not the best to to take that flow. Um but multiple things have to align, you know, your risk tolerance, your setup, and if the flow looks clean, then you just got to take it, right? the market will do what it wants to do. But if you if everything aligns in your process, that's just that's just how trading is.

[00:15:57]>> I like it. I like it. Go for it, James.

[00:15:59]>> Yeah. Let me jump out here. It's really interesting that uh by the way, could you hear me? Okay. Is that all right, R?

[00:16:04]>> Yeah, you're coming in. You're coming in. This is This is James, by the way, Flo or Fliden. I'm >> Yeah, nice to meet you.

[00:16:11]Um, so I found it really interesting that you like I run a small Discord group as well and it's obviously part of the new era, right, of >> Yeah.

[00:16:21]>> product and and community and and trying to kind of create that. I always talk about creating the the trading network and stuff. So could you talk a little bit about how that experience has has been and how people approach your discord and how you deal with pe because you know we all come with different expectations and incentives and time horizons and life situations like how do you incorporate all that into running like your Discord group to kind of deal with people from all sorts of different angles and kind of try to help everybody succeed.

[00:16:54]>> Yeah. I mean, the first thing I kind of, you know, want people to understand when they join is all about risk management and the get-richquick mentality. I think a lot of people see on social media these 1,000% gainers, 500%, you know, so on and so forth, and they'll join these Discords and think that they're going to have these type of trades right away, right? So when I come when these guys come in, I'm like, listen, yes, you're going to have some of these trades, but the main goal is to not lose money, right? The the goal of, you know, options trading is like, you know, to not lose, right? Or to not, you know, lose as much money than to make. Um, but so it's it's all about risk management for me. I, you know, I tell them, hey, like, you know, start small. Um, you know, preserve your capital. Don't hope, you know, I I always like base hits, right? You'll always be very successful taking those 15, 20%, 30% wins rather than hoping to get that 100% 200% win.

[00:18:00]They just end up getting burned out. So, I really start with that, right? I don't I always tell them, hey, this is not a get-richqu thing, you know, overnight over overnight thing, right? you may see on social media and, you know, seeing people make, you know, 2,000% on their account overnight, but that's just not not normal. So, I always make sure to say, you know, become a trader, not a gambler, right? We don't we don't want you to just enter 500 trades and hope and be a hero for your account, right?

[00:18:30]you know, go go in, be smart, you know, preserve your capital and act like a, you know, act like a professional because I think a lot of people in this space these days, it's becoming a very like betting is become so huge, right?

[00:18:46]It used to just be like sports, but now it's like you can bet on anything. And so, everyone is just on this like high of, you know, betting that the market will go this that, you know, the weather, whatever, like poly market, all this stuff. and they'll come in and have this, you know, this crazy energy, but I always try to keep it, you know, levelheaded, right? Come in, be act like a professional, and you'll be successful.

[00:19:16]>> Yeah. Basically trying to probably have to tamper expectations for a lot of people and and hit them with a little bit of the the realistic stick, right?

[00:19:24]Uh, I I love that because >> the the reason you'll be able to eventually hit the 2,000% trade is because you you you hit 500 singles, right? And then you'll be able to decipher like, oh, wait, this one's different. This one's like sneaky. This one's got >> the volatility is so compressed here.

[00:19:44]Like the expansion out of this people are it's just not price right, right?

[00:19:47]Like I don't know options, so I'm just [ __ ] I'm going off off my here. But like you you having been in the markets for so long are going to be able to recognize that and then the newbie is going to think every opportunity is that, right? So it's almost like your job as the guy in there to kind of start tampering those expectations and and to uh educate and inform them as to why like hey longevity here the infinite game is more important than the the finite one time one trade everything matters right now type of situation.

[00:20:19]>> Yep. Exactly. and and you know having experience in the market you would really know when to you know put your foot on the gas and when to you know to step back right a lot of people you know will still overtrade um you know we always say a no trade cash is a position you know you don't always have to be in a trade every single day that's not the goal right if the setup is not there if the market's telling you hey maybe we step back for a sec and you know if it's if it's chopping or whatever There's nothing wrong with just being sidelined. Um, but you know, I that's what, you know, I feel like a lot of people need to learn these days is, you know, that not every day you have to be in a new position.

[00:21:04]>> Yeah. I think it's one of the most contrarian things to think right now that actually the power of cash is like to me it's amplified, right? You could you could put cash in these weird instruments now and be getting a a decent APR while you wait for great opportunities and the great opportunities are all over the place these days where if like I when did you start trading Flo?

[00:21:28]>> I I started trading in 20 uh end of 20 or yeah 2017 and 2018 beginning of 2018.

[00:21:35]>> Okay, perfect. I mean, if you were around in 2017, 2018, it was these slower kind of up and to the right boring mark. I remember specifically in 2017 just being like gh this is like so boring and like whatever.

[00:21:51]>> And in that moment, sure, cash is kind of weird and and worthless because it's like there was no interest on it. There was there was no exciting new technology boom. Like it's almost like you were just like letting it die a rotten death.

[00:22:06]But now like the moves are so crazy. The the the like you could get 10, 15, 20% moves in a week. Like your cash is all of a sudden got this like this uh whatever you call this stuff to start a fire. This Tinder behind it that like if you if you light the fuse in the right spots, it's worth way more than it's ever really been.

[00:22:26]>> Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And again, you know, I feel like the the crazy options volume and option, you know, trading has started in during COVID, right? That that was 27 2018 it was just like a, you know, a slow grind, right? You're kind of just like, okay, well, this is really not much going on. And then when a COVID happened, everyone, you know, everyone's at home and everyone's, you know, in front of their computer and Robin Hood makes it so easy to to open an account and and start trading. And I that's what started everything I feel like.

[00:23:00]>> Oh, I totally agree. Totally agree. Um the the reason I I I really like this stuff and I I think you've probably seen it firsthand a lot. We were going to cover uh this idea of like trading archetypes yesterday. We didn't get to it because our stream went uh forever. I mean, these streams have been really fun, but they've we've been taking them deep like two hours or so. Um but if it's cool with you, I'd like to just run through this deck that I had. And I think uh I'd be I'd really at the end be interested in tying it back to see like what what what archetype do you lean towards and then what archetype do you find that your members and the people you interact with >> um lead towards more?

[00:23:40]>> Sure.

[00:23:40]>> So if that's cool with you, I'm just going to run through this quick flows.

[00:23:43]Is that all right if I just bring that up?

[00:23:46]>> Yeah, shoot.

[00:23:48]>> All right. So I'm gonna I'm on a laptop, so I'm going to kind of go over to this other screen and I'll uh keep going here. So, uh, you guys can see this, right? Uh, trading archetypes deck. Now, now look, I'm not great at making decks.

[00:24:01]Don't blame me that the S is off to the side, okay? Just let me breathe a little bit, okay? Jesus Christ. So, um, I know a lot of you guys follow flows. You're both flows, so whatever. You guys follow these two guys, and you might not know kind of as much of what I do, but I try to look at things from like the the mindset psychology side of things. And the reason why Floss and I have been doing this is like he's going to bring this, you know, global macro foundational pricing of money. And then I'm going to bring the mindset, psychology, scalping, trade composition, execution, and we're going to meet in the middle and hopefully provide some value for everybody. Uh, but one of the foundations that I've always gone back to is like you can't just come in trying to be global flows. You can't come in trying to be fliden or jabes. Like you need to start, you need to sit back like, "Hey, I want to be a trader. I want to do this for a long time." You need to sit back and reflect first of all on like who you are as a person. What you're trying to get out of this thing, what are your expectations? Do you have a job? Do you not have a job? Do you have kids? Do you not have kids? Do I have a bankroll? Do I not have a bankroll? Blah blah blah.

[00:25:16]All of these big things right here, right? So, u you know, I wanna I want to highlight like the the difference here, right? You have the picture the 24 year old crypto bro who lives on his computer and his phone, doesn't care about volatility, the world's against him, no real obligations, lives in the Discord, loves fast, quick decisions, and again, can just weather, you know, losing 40% of his bankroll like it's no big deal and go out and buy his uh, you know, coffee or whatever. is going to do that day or walk around Bickl Miami because I think that's where they all live, right?

[00:25:52]And then you have the other one who's like me, right? The old [ __ ] from the suburbs who's got a family. I have, you know, I don't actually am not limited on time. This is this is my job, so I do feel in the trenches, but like, you know, you want maybe more of a steady income. you want to have a little bit more stability so that you can be present in your kids' lives while while you know not letting the um trying to silo things a little bit, compartmentalize things a little bit and to preserve and compound capital. Um so the these I think it's pretty obvious to most people that these two people should not be trading the same, right? Like they shouldn't they they won't trade the same, they shouldn't trade the sh the same. And I think that just kind of is obvious. So I kind of broke that down into like, hey, look, there's more archetypes. I get it. This is just a painting a broad picture here, right?

[00:26:45]But you have what I would refer to as a bull, right? This is going to be that leading thinker. Where's the puck going broad kind of visionary, really aggressive, wants to be the one that's kind of pushing the pace in the world, right? Then you have the owl. And I'll break these down a little bit more. The owl is going to be a little bit more of that critical thinker. I'm never going to make a move until I understand something down to the absolute bones.

[00:27:10]And then I want to be very conservative with what I'm doing. The fox, which is going to be a bit more of the guy who's scalping around, going with the sentiment, the flows, following this, like a catalyst on the news, whatever that it's the back and forth, the long short, the the guy who's rotating constantly. Then you have the elephant who is going to be maybe it's somebody with a bit more capital. They're defensive in nature. They want things to compound over time. They don't want to be chasing the next shiny object. Uh it's all about survival and compounding.

[00:27:42]All right. So you can see how these are all going to be very different things.

[00:27:46]And guys I you know I have this deck sent to Global Flows and he's going to put this with um you you'll attach it to this after the call I assume and everybody will get it.

[00:27:57]>> Yeah. Everyone can grab this and then I'll have you know flow siden's links and everything else on go to capital flows research website. So if you guys want to go through everything on there, everything will be laid out at capitalflowsarchearch.com.

[00:28:12]All the educational primers, all the stuff here, and you can go through and and in the article I sent out today, you can download this deck and then uh you know, if you want to I I'll have all of stuff linked, but here's his his section his Twitter page as well, and you can go through um you know, search him at his and then go through his stuff as well.

[00:28:32]But that that's where everything will uh oh yeah for for flowside and all of his stuff he'll be here and then >> all of the the research will be will be on the website there. But yeah, we'll we'll have it all linked.

[00:28:46]>> Thanks. So I won't go through all these uh full slides, but if you want to do this, I I'd suggest pulling them off to the side later and reading them. And I also have some videos on my YouTube channel that are about this exactly. And I do have some like longer things I call spirit guides that are like 150 pages breaking down these things a lot more in a simple sense. But the general idea here for a bull, right? High conviction, bigger sizing, quicker decision- making, strong asymmetric upside capture, can handle emotional swings or can can deal with them. That could be kind of the downside of it. and can eventually overtrade or get too pot committed or um you know feel like their identity is attached to results. Right? There there's upsides and downsides to every archetype. And also you're going to have a little bit of every archetype, right?

[00:29:36]You're not just like bucketed into one.

[00:29:39]But you can see like as you read through this deck later on, you're going to have things that are more aligned with you and things that are less aligned with you. So I would go through kind of think about that like think about your positions that you are in today is that did you get swayed into doing that right because you read a flow side and post about something or a global flows post about per well look if if you're a defensive uh compounding boring don't ever have time to tap in don't really care about the macro type person and you haven't even been in the pro trade maybe that trade's not for you right but you can learn a lot from it, right? Maybe it's more of a a bull trade that was there at the start and had heavy conviction and had a good entry. Whatever you get, you catch my drift. The owl is going to be a bit more of the long-term thinker. Loves the research process. Calm under pressure because they're not being convinced to do something just because other people are doing it. They're really good at accumulation in stealth mode before anybody really maybe knows what's going on, right? They could see that bigger picture. But what could be the downsides of that? Missing trades.

[00:30:46]Maybe there is a hot market that you don't capture anything of. You hesitate.

[00:30:50]You question yourself. Do you really know everything about everything? You got a lot of analysis paralysis as owls.

[00:30:57]So upside downside Fox fast rotations aware of the narrative flexible creative strong instincts reads the flow well probably feels sentiment and catalyst and all that but overtrading can become inconsistent can get chopped up could look back over a bull market and be like wait a minute I'm poorer what happened right that's you know a lot of people that we probably see and I and I'll let you tap on this later but people are boxes when they come into this space.

[00:31:28]They want to chase everything. They want to be that, you know, savvy trader, but it could hurt a lot of people. And last up, elephant. You know, always aware of the risk, stable, patient, slow, and intentional with all of their decisions.

[00:31:43]Never going to blow up. All they want to do is protect their capital, right? But a lot of times, these guys will underperform. Kind kind of like the owl, right? They're going to be so defensive and a little bit scared in nature that they're just going to miss out on massive upside. And over time, maybe their compounding actually wins them more than a lot of different archetypes, but it could be 40 years down the road.

[00:32:06]So maybe they're not going to change their life in three years, but in 30 years they could be in a really great spot. So again, I would go through and think about the alignment with all those, right? So, here's an interesting way like you could kind of visualize these different archetypes in these different like you know an owl is going to have a lot of patience probably you know middle of the ground conviction on things until they really know what they're doing maybe not so adaptable not so much risk tolerance but really heavy on the analysis like you know this kind of visualizes kind of where your mindset lives in this archetype archetype framework work. Um, and again, how does your strategy fit your life? How much time do you have available? What's your emotional tolerance to risk and volatility and draw downs and even winning? How do you handle winning? How much capital do you have? Do you have runway? Do you not? What's your experience level? Have you been in the markets like Flowiden since 2017 and seen quite a lot of [ __ ] or you just starting in 2025 and you like prediction markets and per you know this gonna be a different person. What are your family responsibilities? What are your goals?

[00:33:17]Right? These are all questions you need to be at least taking some time with.

[00:33:21]And last but not least, I like to tie these things back to the bets that we're in. Right? So if you if you're just showing up now and you don't really realize that the global close bets that have been on, we have PER, we have Oracle, right? These have been the ones we've been talking about a lot. How might the bull, the fox, the owl, the elephant be thinking about this per trade, right? Maybe the bull is trying to ride the momentum, kind of able to handle the swings, right? Not chasing, kind of just trying to accumulate to their position and compound and find that asymmetry over time. Maybe the fox doesn't want to be holding this thing for six months. Maybe he's going to sell on every rip and buy on every dip. The owl might be waiting for confirmation to put on a position or to wait for big pullbacks to really, you know, make sure that they're not taking big risk here.

[00:34:10]And the elephant might just be like, "All right, hey, this isn't really my thing. It's it's it's pretty aggressive in nature. Maybe I'll start pushing um me to take a small position in something like per start to feel what it's like to be in a high volatility position to push my boundaries a little bit to um grow as a trader, right? Uh Oracle might lean more into the elephant's thesis where it went down 60 65% or whatever we've been accumulating since this area after the selloff. Maybe this is one of those companies of Larry Ellison and that's a that's a strong portfolio addition to your compounding thing over a long time. So maybe it leans more towards the elephant and maybe it leans less towards the fox who wants to be in and out and in and out because Oracle is going to move a little bit slower than PER and Hyperlid are right now. Um, so I think that's a a quick kind of broad synopsis on on how I think about individual traders. And sorry if I rambled there a bit, but um I'd love to hear your thoughts on that from from both you and Floid if you want to go first. I'd love to hear how how you relate to one of those or what you see other people do.

[00:35:24]>> Yeah. When uh when I first uh started options trading, I was definitely more of that aggressive, you know, just crackhead mentality type trader, you know, just having those trying to find those aggressive moves, you know, being in like three, four positions. And this is this is before the the Discord. This is when I like, you know, was doing it by myself and, you know, having the confidence and just doing my own thing.

[00:35:51]Um, but as time went on, um, you know, I became way more preservative and and I'm and right now I'm very preservative. So even though I look at thousands and thousands of flow orders every day that, you know, maybe 10, 15, 20 of them look really good, I'll still maybe play two to three, you know, let's say every other day. Okay. So, I think like you know toward like for the week there'll be weeks where I'll play maybe two trades, right? even though I've seen so many flow trades that are coming in um I've become very more you know I I preserve a lot of my capital and you know I don't I don't have a a kid you know or a wife or anything you know I'm so young I'm you know I can I my risk to should be high you know because I can you know obviously risk a little more at my age but again that's just the trader I I am you know no matter how many trades I see on flow So for me, I just like to, you know, find that one or two and ride that. Um, but yeah, back in the day, it was very, you know, give me 100% on 10 trades in three days, you know, um, size for zero in a lot of them. But now it's like, okay, no, I want to, you know, just give give me those two, three trades a week and I profit. I profit.

[00:37:18]>> Close. How do you how do you >> Go ahead. Uh, I was just going to ask, how do you how do you think about this entire market environment with that? You're talking about, okay, batting my singles and kind of just picking my spots. How do you think about when when the environment, you know, matching that to the environment where you're kind of in a period of time where we're just kind of batting singles? And then how do you think about okay if volatility begins to expand is that a moment where you just say okay if if if the VIX begins to blow out we start to have a market crash. Is that kind of where you begin to size up or you're saying you know what I'm just going to wait a little bit get a little less aggressive just wait to kind of have this stuff flow through and then get back in later. How do you think about preparing for that period of time?

[00:38:03]more how do you think about those you could say tales on either side when you're when you're taking these bets or does is that is that kind of where you want to be the most or is that those are just things that you're trying to sidestep how you think about that >> yeah I think it it it remains the same and as far as like sizing up you know I I usually never size up until my account has personally you know like 2x 3xed or whatever um regardless of the market conditions like um when I I became very aggressive was back in that what was it se like beginning of September October where all those you know high beta stocks made a lot of those runs and that's where I I became very aggressive because obviously the flow on those were just it was just working so well. I remember waking up like every morning thinking that the market's just going to make this crazy pullback but it just would not. you'd see all, you know, those like NVTS, um, APLD, those type of tickers, you'd see them up 15% a day, you know, and you'd have all these flow contracts that I would see 30% out the money for 500K and premium, you know, the chart didn't look the greatest, but when you see all these types of, you know, uh, positions, you're like, man, I got to I got to become very aggressive. Um but yeah, regardless of the market conditions, if yeah, if we do have, you know, the the VIX expansion and you know, we do have a sell off, it remains the same for me. I I I still, you know, obviously if there's more opportunity in my phase, then of course I will take advantage of it, but as far as my strategy, it'll probably remain the same.

[00:39:44]>> Yeah, I like it. I think James and I often talk about how are, you know, we always thinking about and preparing for when you have those kind of periods of time of volatility because I think now on the on the upside and downside, especially with the amount of structured products we have now, especially with the amount of option flow, I mean, I think there was a chart going around a week or so ago on how much notional option interest there there is in the S&P 500 and it's, you an an insane amount these days. And I think that it's re >> really interesting because I think there's a lot more compression involved and then you have these really really fast blowouts where everything gets priced in like a really quick moment. I be >> I'd be curious how you think about, you know, when V blows out to the upside or downside or something like that. Do you find yourself having to take gains faster and it's harder for it to just kind of grind along, but you just get everything priced really aggressively in a moment and then you wait for a while and then it has another expansion and we just have a lot more, you know, explosive moves, but then just periods of really longer calm between them or how how do you think about that?

[00:40:59]Yeah, I mean def definitely take the gains much faster um you know with these type with these type of moves. Um yeah, I'm not exactly sure how else I would I'll answer this question. Um but yeah, no just taking positions off much faster.

[00:41:18]Um and yeah and also like you know after that that type of situation I I will definitely just like take a step back and be like okay let me let me just let the market just kind of settle in and then and then we'll go from there.

[00:41:32]>> Right.

[00:41:34]>> I have a I have a question on that. Like are you somebody who has traded so many different names and had so many different expansions and contractions of volatility and seen so much that you don't um attach yourself to any trade so much or do you have like some stuff you really really believe in and you have a hard time letting go? Because I feel like in options land like if volatility expands enough you probably have to be like dude like I just got to take this.

[00:42:03]I don't care if I'm out of the position now.

[00:42:06]>> Yep. Yep. Yeah. I don't I don't marry a certain group of stocks. Like, you know, it's funny. I actually hate trading like MAG seven stocks. I've I just like to trade any ticker that looks good. Um like I rarely trade Tesla. I rarely trade Nvidia. Like those type of stocks.

[00:42:24]I I just I just stay away. It's never uh you know, done well for me. Um, but again, that's the the great thing about being a flow trader is that I see all these different type of tickers that I've never seen before. And again, it doesn't matter to me. Like, if I don't know this ticker, if I've never traded before, but if it aligns with my strategy, I'm going to take it, right?

[00:42:47]Um, so I I don't necessarily marry a couple stock. There might be a couple that I've played multiple times and I've been successful. But again, it's not like I wake up every day and looking up looking for that um that ticker and be like, "Okay, how am I going to trade this, you know, today for the fourth time of the week, right? For me, it's every day is like a new day." Um if and whatever ticker that looks good for me, then I I'll definitely uh take a position on that.

[00:43:13]>> Yeah. You're married to the ticker.

[00:43:15]You're not married to uh which ticker specifically. You're just married to tickers in general, right? Exactly.

[00:43:20]Exactly. I'm married to the flow. If if the flow is >> the flow. That's right. You are married, bro. There you go.

[00:43:27]>> Exactly.

[00:43:29]>> We just don't know what the gender is.

[00:43:30]It's just flow. It's just flow.

[00:43:32]>> Yeah. Yeah. We're going to keep that.

[00:43:34]>> Yeah. Exactly.

[00:43:36]I think I think one of the the nice things about that and James you can kind of like speak to this from going from like a a trader who is just kind of I I feel like more on that side where where you're just trading the the ticks in the book and the changes and price action not really as focused on bigger picture themes or narratives or FL like you know stuff like that and the ability that you can have to just kind of always reset mentally every single day or every single week and not have a lot from, you know, the the past kind of bleed in. And kind of the trade-offs of that where it's where it's like you can always come in and it's just like a brand new day every day versus, you know, someone who it's just this continuous progression of a theme and you have to figure out if you're getting married or divorced every year. Uh so talk talk a little bit about that.

[00:44:31]Yeah, I I do in a sense miss that because for 10 years I would come in and I would say I don't care if S&P is up or down, right? Because like I didn't have this huge bag in the background with a bias, right? Because like, you know, I'm in PER. I want PER to go up. I want Hyperlid to go up, right? So, I come up every day and I refresh my screen hoping it's higher. And a little bit of me is like gh like I hate that I'm even like that because I could come in for a decade and be like I don't care. I'll short everything. I don't give a [ __ ] Like I'm a horizontal trader and it's the same thing as Floseidon, right? Like he could take his framework, his risk framework, and he could plop it here. He could plop it there. He could plop it here. And it doesn't really matter as long as he knows like where is the action, where's the interesting execution layer to put this on. and to switch from that to trying to figure out [ __ ] you know, real interest rates and the curves steepening and how does that impact a 6 to 12 month position.

[00:45:34]Like that's a whole new world for me that I'm still trying to acclimate to, but I find myself getting so attached to like what needs to happen. It affects me more and more. So, it's something that I deal with because I was more of the fox, right? And and I'm trying to become more of more of the bull, more of the elephant in a way. And but it's it's give and take, right?

[00:45:58]Because I think in the end, I need to figure this out to level up to accumulate large amounts of wealth as opposed to trading tick for tick and praying for a VIX that goes to 50 or 80 or whatever it is. So, you know, I I I think that's how I'd respond to that.

[00:46:17]>> Yeah. Floid, how have you thought about as as this environment progresses, how you are kind of expecting to focus and change in the future in terms of where you're identifying trades in either the flow or other things as the market changes more. You know, I'm sure you know, you already mentioned things have changed so much as the option flow increased, commissions changed. You have a lot uh, you know, a lot different execution style for institutions post 2020 as well.

[00:46:51]>> And, you know, I'm curious where do you think that or where are you kind of spending time looking for new avenues for finding trade ideas or new things in in this world? How do you kind of think about adapting and progressing in that way? Yeah. Um, so aside from Flow, I've been definitely using more of um, gamma and vex exposures. I I just partnered up with a company um, last year called Skyllet. Um, and they've been focusing way more on uh, heat maps with, you know, gamma and vex exposures. Um, so that's been another tool in the arsenal that we've been heavily using. um you know because sometimes you know to be honest with you there will be weeks where the flow is just not working right like no matter what like I I remember I think it was like last month or something where it just felt like all these whales were just getting blown out like and you know you would have the right setup the flow would look good you know the chart would look good but they were just on a you know horrific um win rate so you know we'd have to go you know try a new tool and I think that's where the the gamma and the vex exposures has really helped because it kind of shows where the dealers are being positioned. Um so that's definitely a tool that you know we've really implemented um into our process.

[00:48:08]You know obviously again the charts will tell you the the story. Um you know macro will obviously catch up, micro will catch up um to trading as well. Um but yeah, aside from the flow uh you know the the dealer positioning with the the gamas and the VEX and all that stuff has definitely been a help. aside from the the flow.

[00:48:31]>> Yeah, I like it. I like it. I think there there's going to be a lot of interesting you know the thing I'm most interested in in terms of what the next event will be when V blows out is how exactly we can have you know execution happen when so many institutions today they need to move the price just to get their fill and there's a lot less elasticity in markets and a lot more you know a lot more today people have to use whether it's zerod options to hedge or zero DTE to get execution liquidity where they put on a hedge and then they start an execution algo they're hedging their risk a little bit then they're you know getting on s you know they're putting up the risk exposure and I think it's going to be very interesting because if you have a real shift especially if we have to you know we're now having another inflationary shock and if you have capital that ends up needing to shift after that and sell equities to buy bonds or selling equities to reduce exposure because you have less incomes coming into 401k flows, institutions, all these other kind of, you know, mechanical parts of the market. You know, it's going to be a a perfect environment, I think, for anyone who is actively trading, especially watching kind of the flows that you're talking about and getting the reps in the option market and just watching that stuff very closely. So I I just think it's it's one of those scenarios where you have this really cool out-of-the money call option on like your skill as volatility just kind of just keeps changing so much and then you also have that kind of tail event where eventually when it does something does happen that's when you can have that really large really large payout if you play it right.

[00:50:24]>> Right. Yeah 100%.

[00:50:29]I have a I have another question just because because you're here and I think this is super interesting. But what to you flowiden like what is the best regime for you? Where do you find the most success? Do you like it when it's quieter because you can see flows during like stealthy periods and you're like oo I could sneak into this position before things get crazy. or do you really like high volatility stuff where where options are pricing like crazy or or or is that bad for you? Like how do you approach that?

[00:51:01]>> Yeah, I personally e either or works.

[00:51:04]Um, but if I had to pick one, I think it's more of the high volatility, especially if it's like, you know, more of like a theme. You know, when you had the theme of AI, you had the theme of photonics, you now you have the theme of this the space, you know, stocks, right?

[00:51:17]Um, that's where we become a little more aggressive. You know, obviously the stealth is finding these, you know, moves before, you know, the the greatest thing that that could happen is being in a position before the flow comes, right?

[00:51:30]you know, you you're in a you're in a trade and then next thing you know, you see a nice order uh and flow and that always makes you feel better. But as far as like, you know, the environment, it's definitely more of that higher volatility, higher options pricing and kind of following the theme, right?

[00:51:45]Obviously, you might be paying a premium because, you know, the the stocks have may have moved already um in the past couple days, but and and whales do have a tendency of chasing the highs and you got to be very careful with that. Um but at the same time if the theme is intact, if the the volume is there um with these tickers, then you know I I more prefer that than kind of you know waiting for the next you know quiet move.

[00:52:15]>> That makes that makes a lot of sense. um these thematic rotations and stuff and kind of seeing where the puck is going.

[00:52:21]It's pro and like maybe you're paying a little premium, but you can see you could kind of feel the confirmation as it gets going.

[00:52:28]>> That's that's really good. H how do you like what type of things stack up on the back end of that for to give you warning signs to be like, oh, maybe some really big players are painting that options tape a little too aggressively at the highs and like balls expand. What are some of the things that give you warning signs to step away or to take the opposite side?

[00:52:48]>> Yeah, I mean like you know for example when AOI hit like what 200 something a share and you see these guys are buying you know the last the last strike on the broker you know with millions of calls and it's the chart is just so incredibly expensive. you're like, "Okay, well, like this may this may hit." But I mean, if you're just using common sense when a stock is up like a,000% like and these whales are just continuously, you know, buying million dollars worth of calls, that's like, okay, I'm I'm going to stay away from this. This just this just does not feel right, right? And if I miss it, I miss it, right? That that that's just how it is. You know, I'm there's been many stocks where, you know, you think it's expensive and you think that, okay, it's it's been up 30% in the last, you know, two weeks that, okay, there's no way it's going higher and then next thing you know, it's up 90%. Right? But that's the nature of trading, right?

[00:53:38]You're going to miss you're going to miss moves. That's just how it is. Um, but yeah, as far as the back, it's just seeing these aggre like very aggressive orders just, you know, it just feels like it's more of like a intuition. I don't know just by reading flow for the past six years I have that kind of that gut feeling um and I think the more and more you look at it you the the the stronger feeling you get like but um yeah it's just seeing these you know you know I think I think a couple days ago before we had that little drop in the market you know whales were buying spy 1100 strikes 1120 strikes you know the the max max strikes I'm like okay this doesn't you know this doesn't seem too good or you know if spy at support these whales are buying you know all these uh put flows for 3 million I always tell like my members I'm like listen the more and more put flow you see on on spy I think we're getting closer to a bottom and it's it has actually a pretty uh high win rate it just feels like you know these guys are just chasing that one little extra move and it it truly doesn't work out that Oh man, I love that idea on the downside because you you'll feel through something like X or on Discord or whatever, you'll feel the bearishness start to peak and then you could combine that with like that. I love that like the the the last strike available flow.

[00:55:10]Yep.

[00:55:10]>> Right. That's that's like your perfect example of people starting to call for like 3,200 S&P or like you know whatever it may be. Combine that with like I remember the last big selloff was like the um you know bridges and infrastructure day where we were going to luke a 70 million person country or whatever and I'm sure there was a lot of put flow that day too. Yep. And uh if that if you could kind of layer those up that's what aligns to like a massive bet in my eyes.

[00:55:39]>> Exactly.

[00:55:41]Exactly.

[00:55:42]The sentiment always works.

[00:55:45]>> Yeah. Well, yeah. Combined with a few other things that you >> Exactly.

[00:55:49]>> like figured out over all these years.

[00:55:52]So, you know, I most too many people rely just on the sentiment. But I think you have enough of these cues that you've lined up and where they probably just come natural to you. But to me, I've never even heard about the idea of looking at the furthest strikeouts volume going way right because I'm not an options guy. But that's probably like level two, you know, whatever stuff. So, >> I find that super super interesting and hopefully some people could could take some away there.

[00:56:24]>> Yeah, I always like thinking about that that side of things and the the option flow. I know that uh I mean again, I'm not as much of a complex option trader.

[00:56:36]you know, I'll I'll I'll have some, you know, basic strategies running here or there, but I always think that the the options trader always have a really clear information about where flow is across the entire distribution, where we're at with strikes, where we're at with different gamma and Vega and all of the different Greeks that we have, and then how I just think how risk is priced across >> the entire distribution, not just a single part of the distribution. And I think that's what's always right like super valuable about what you're talking about. And I just think it's going to going to be more valuable just with how information asymmetry is working, right?

[00:57:17]I think we're already people already I think beginning to realize how that works when you have like poly market and all these other onchain things where you see these these flows come in and people are trying to track wallets and all this new stuff, right? and they're realizing that there's really informed players and I think a lot of times those are kind of kept in the background a little bit and people don't realize what's happening but I think as more of this option flow you know people recognize more on how it fits into the overall picture and a lot of the work that you're doing it's interesting um I think it's just going to be a really cool environment to find that information asymmetry And just a just a comment here. I think this is like a valuable comment. I appreciate the honesty you guys have when evaluating how you approach your work and even after years in the game, the scope to get better. Like yeah, that's like that's that's why I think it's so important to surround yourself with the people like us three right here are very different executors in ways we think about the markets. Um but we can pull from each other in various ways and learn how to just add to your arsenal little things, right? I'm never going to become a flows trader, but now I have a couple more things to take away from this conversation to add to my game that's going to amplify my results in the end. Um, so I think that's a a great comment there and uh yep, that that's all on my end. I I think uh super interesting stuff. I appreciate uh all all your advice there.

[00:58:53]>> Yeah. Awesome. Well, flow sign, thanks for thanks for hopping on and be able to chat for a little bit. I think it's just really cool to to get other people on here and um I always love kind of the the posts that you share and kind of some of the flow that you you have. It always kind of makes me think about things a little bit differently. Yeah.

[00:59:11]>> And you know, I'll be interested to see how uh I know we've both kind of been talking about a little bit, but how the the per play goes out. I think what'll be interesting is seeing how each of us execute around it, right? and kind of seeing, you know, how you you trade around a little bit. Kind of see where, you know, my entrances and exits end up being, whatever time horizon that is.

[00:59:31]And I think that's just great for people to be able to to see different people executing on the same asset or same thesis because they realize how connects back to this trading archetype thing that and framework that James laid out.

[00:59:45]So, I just think it'll be a really cool rest of the year to see how all these different factors play out and and how, you know, we kind of end up executing across things individually.

[00:59:55]>> Yep.

[00:59:57]I appreciate you guys having me and it's a great discussion and hopefully, you know, I helped in some some sort of way.

[01:00:03]>> Oh, for sure. No, I think I think a lot of the the comments that you made and how you frame things was super helpful for people and I think it brings it back to the first principles that James and I talk about on streams every day about like what you have you have this information but then how do you take that and make good decisions with it, right? In in these uncertain environments, right? So, I think that's just another thing that's kind of really good to to be to be thinking about >> 100%.

[01:00:35]>> Right on, James. Any final thoughts?

[01:00:38]>> Yeah, guys, just I pulled up Flowad's page here. Go follow him. If you're an options trader and you're looking to get better, I would highly suggest going and checking out his Discord and seeing what's that that is all about. I see the [ __ ] link right there. Just click that and you can uh you could probably get to chat with him a lot more often. So, very cool.

[01:00:57]>> And make sure you give him a follow. And uh, you know, rising tide lifts all boats here, guys. We're all trying to make it.

[01:01:04]>> Yes. Absolutely. Appreciate you guys.

[01:01:07]Thank you so much.

[01:01:08]>> Totally. All right. We'll catch everyone later. We'll catch you guys on the stream tomorrow.