← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Bernd Skorupinski - #1 Ranked Prop Trader in the World | The Psychology of Winning Traders
01:43:32
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- [00:00]
Baron Skoropinski
I have a corporate background. After my studies, I got a corporate job for like a couple of years. And I realized the corporate world is not for me because I was a slave of my desk. The reason why I went into trading was not necessarily the money, but more about the time freedom.
- [00:15]
Scott Clary
He walked away from the safety of a predictable corporate career and stepped straight into one of the riskiest games in the world. Baron Skoropinski didn't gamble his future. He rebuilt it.
- [00:25]
Baron Skoropinski
When I started trading 13 years ago, I put a lot of effort in my trading education. I would always tell people, look for something, something that fits your lifestyle. Day trading is literally like a 9 to 5 job. So the question is, hey, can you fit another 9 to 5 job into your life? The answer is no. That's why swing trading midterm to longer term trades is way more sustainable with.
- [00:48]
Scott Clary
Discipline, precision and pure price action mastery. He became a trader known for consistency, transparency and real results. Today he leads online trading campus, teaching thousands to trade with structure instead of hope.
- [01:01]
Baron Skoropinski
I consider trading as the best, best side hustle in the world, not in full time job. People should have multiple income streams and they should keep their job as long as possible. The end game of trading is once you get detached from money. Trading is literally a process game. If you follow the process right every single time, the end result is money. There's no overnight success. It looks easy, but it's definitely not easy foreign.
- [01:35]
Scott Clary
So burn. You make your living trading the markets, but your advice is spend less time looking at charts. So what are successful traders doing instead?
- [01:44]
Baron Skoropinski
Well, usually successful traders are not necessarily day traders. That's more like, I would say a social media phenomenon. Because on social media everyone is promoting day day trading. I'm coming from, I have corporate background. So right after my studies I got a corporate job for like a couple of years. And then I realized the corporate world is not for me because I was a slave of my desk. Basically the nine to five grind. I mean for me it was not a nine to five. For me it was basically seven to midnight. Basically almost no sleep at this time. So I wanted to have more time freedom, more time flexibility. So the reason why I went into trading was not necessarily the money, but more about the time freedom. So I quote unquote developed a strategy that I would consider or call, set and forget and get alive. Meaning you spend less time in front of the screen and you still make decent returns in the market. So when it comes to trading, we classified as traders, more like as swing trading, which is you spend time in trades for a couple of days or even weeks.
- [03:04]
Scott Clary
Why did day trading even become so popular? Because what you say makes a lot of sense. If you're going to replace your full time, 9 to 5 or whatever, 7 to 11, as some people are working very hard. If you replace it with the business or trading or the whole goal in life is freedom, that's what everybody wants. Everybody wants some version of freedom, but then they end up making them, creating a more complex job and a more time consuming job, which doesn't make much sense to me at all because I do know some people that are day traders and it's even worse than entrepreneurs because they can't even go to like lunch without bringing their laptop with them. So where did this whole phenomenon of day trading and being quite literally a slave to your laptop and the markets down to the minute, where does that come from?
- [03:49]
Baron Skoropinski
That's a very, I think, philosophical discussion because I'm also not sure. But I think it's about the perception of making quick money and the appeal of, hey, I can make money a lot of money in seconds or even minutes. And this appeals to a lot of younger audience who maybe don't necessarily want to work hard for the money, but wants to have like the quick, the quick cash out. Almost like, you know, last week I was in Vegas for some podcasts. It's almost like making the analogy like going to the casino or having the slot machine mindset, you know, quick money, not working hard for their money. Maybe that's why it's so popular in the social media world, especially for the younger audience. Especially in particular for the younger audience.
- [04:48]
Scott Clary
I would say I'm actually more curious because you sort of, you've built yourself a successful life and business doing things, I would say the right way. Did you go through periods of your life where you tried the day trading and the things that were sort of a little bit sold to you as like a quicker return?
- [05:06]
Baron Skoropinski
No, actually. So I'm a, I'm a full time trader now since roughly 11 years and I'm originally, you might hear that from accent. I'm from Germany, but I moved to Dubai 2009 already. So since I live in Dubai since 16 years now and when I started trading, and I started trading 13 years ago, I was starting, yes, with a little bit of day trading as well because I had a little bit of time on my hands and I always tell people, you can start with day trading if you have the time because it gives you immediate feedback, you know, you get immediate results and then you know Basically because you can create the mod. Basically I'm trying to simplify it now for the audience a little bit. The quote unquote, the more trades you take, the more sample size you have and the more you can, you have more sample size, more results and then you can tweak on your trading strategy. And obviously you have more sample size quicker with day trading because you have a higher frequency of trades versus with swing trading because you have less frequency, you have less sample size, you take longer to tweak your strategy in a general sense. Right. So I went through a period because I had the time I needed, I wanted a sample size. I put a lot of effort in my trading education back in the days. So I was doing a lot of day trading as well. And then I created a certain sample size to tweak my strategy. But then I used that strategy that I developed, kind of moved it into swing trading, longer term trading and tweaked it there a little bit as well. So it was like a process. I would say like anything else in business as well, like it's entrepreneurship. But I always tell people, don't look for a specific. We could because trading, we could classify and date. Let's. There's even something else that goes even, that is even far, like scalping, high frequency trading. But we don't have to discuss that. I would never recommend this to anyone. Right? So let's say there's day trading and there's swing trading. I would always tell people, look for something that fits your lifestyle because you know, people might be drawn towards day trading the quote unquote quick money. But they have a full time job, they have family, they have kids, they have hobbies, they have social obligations, they have life. Like we all have lives, right? So it's basically day trading is literally like a 9 to 5 job. So the question is, hey, can you fit another 9 to 5 job into your life? Most probably for the majority of people the answer is no. So don't even go that route. Right. So. And don't get disappointed. So that's why swing trading or like the midterm to longer term trades is way more sustainable for, for, for the mass audience.
- [08:02]
Scott Clary
How did you so even walking through like sort of your life and you as an example. So for somebody who's listening to this or saying, oh, I want to quit my job and be a trader, how do you actually go through that process? Like what did life look like? Set real expectations.
- [08:17]
Baron Skoropinski
First of all, I would never ever recommend quit your job and become a trader. Never Ever I would say have a use. Trading is the. I consider trading as the best side hustle in the world, right? And I emphasize on a side hustle, right. And not in full time job. So people should have, especially in the beginning, multiple income streams and they should keep their job as long as possible and use trading as a side income eventually. Obviously doesn't work from the beginning. You cannot make money from the beginning, right? We are, we are real here in that podcast, right? You cannot make. There's a, there's a learning curve in trading like with any other business in the world because trading is a profession people have to like once they get into trading, they have to shift their mindset from, hey, I'm starting a profession, a real professional business. Like I want to become a pilot, I want to become a lawyer, I want to become an engineer, I want to become a doctor. Whatever it is, it's trading is a profession like any other profession. So they have to go with that mindset into that venture because hey, it takes some time to learn a profession. And there are some like in life it's like ups and downs, right? It takes like, it's not a steady learning curve. It take its ups and downs. So they have to approach it with that kind of mindset and well, and then it's basically just takes time like anything else in life, right? And they have to have these realistic expectations as well.
- [09:49]
Scott Clary
Maybe actually it would be helpful before we speak about too much, but maybe it's good to actually define some like different things when it comes to trading. So when somebody is first getting into the world of trading, what are the different options? Like, what are the different things they can actually think about? Because I guess where you start which is safest is just like the Warren Buffett version of investing where you just at least you, you, you can start with like a Vanguard ETF or some sort of like fund. And then the next level would be like picking stocks. And the next level would be, I guess then is the next level like swing trading where there's actually some paying attention to the market as opposed to just setting and forgetting it for years. Like what are the levels to this game?
- [10:30]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, what is the levels in general? I would always say the foundation is always learn about trading in general investing or trading because, well, I would never ever recommend for people to take some money and put it into any kind of market or financial investment when it comes to the markets without having any real skill or knowledge. And what I mean is like specialized skill and specialized knowledge about the markets. So you always need a foundation. Without foundation, the likelihood that you might lose all your money because you don't know what you don't know, right? And you're not skilled is very, very high. So regardless of where you start, whether you want to just pick some stocks or buy an ETF or really want to be more active in the market, you need to skill and you need to specialize knowledge. Otherwise it's very likely it will backfire.
- [11:35]
Scott Clary
I think we even, we even saw this last week.
- [11:39]
Baron Skoropinski
Even saw this last week.
- [11:40]
Scott Clary
Yes, a lot of crypto people getting wiped out because of their leverage on.
- [11:44]
Baron Skoropinski
And that's the problem, right? And that's why trading. And I said it's funny because I said that yesterday in a podcast as well. That's why trading has such a bad rep, because people think trading is super risky because they hear these horror stories. Last Friday, the market was super volatile, especially in crypto. And people, because they're in crypto leverage, they lose all their money and stuff. But you know what? Because I don't. And that's the problem. The market is so the market is accessible for everyone. And since the market is accessible for everyone and it takes you 60 minutes to, you know, to open up a brokerage account, you use your debit Visa card to deposit some money and then you place a trades. You don't know shit. Yeah, I know you don't know shit. But you consider yourself a trader because you have placed a trade, right? But is this really like, is this really the definition of a trader? Because, right, you have definition of engineers, definition of lawyers, definition of doctors, definition of whatever, of any profession. But when it comes to trading, the problem is that in trading, there's no real accreditation system, there's no real certification system. Everybody can go out and sound smart about trading and talk about trading and people are less smart and think, this person sounds really like articulate. So let's follow this guy and, and he could be full of shit, right? And that's the problem when it comes to the markets. Because when you do it professionally, trading, I would say it's less risky than any other profession in the world. Why? Because if you do it professionally, you can always determine your risk. You can always determine what you want to risk per trade. If I say now on this particular trade, regardless, by the way, whether it's a leveraged market, non leveraged market, this doesn't make any, this doesn't make any difference. On any trade that I take, leveraged or non leveraged, I, as a trader, professional trader, determine how Much money I want to risk per trade. Whether it's like 5 bucks, 500 bucks, 50 million bucks, anything in between, that's the maximum amount I can lose. I determine that amount for every single trade. And a professional trader does that. And if you don't do that, you're not a professional. As simple as it gets.
- [14:07]
Scott Clary
Well, I know. So when I was sort of researching like who you are as a person and going down the rabbit hole, I didn't realize how bad this industry was. Like I mentioned before, I kind of see some people because I see them on Instagram and I talk about trading and whatnot, but it's not like my main thing. So I don't know. It's super. Well, I know investing because I invest myself. I don't teach it. I just pay attention and I've all. I actually love what you said, how if you are going to be like successful as an investor, you have to learn one thing better than anything else. So whether or not it's like, could be real estate, it could be crypto, it could be stocks, if you know one thing better than anything else, there's a better chance you're going to be successful at that thing. So I love that you said that, but I didn't realize how bad trading was, so I didn't realize that this industry is notorious for fake screenshots, like unverifiable claims, people that are hiding their results. And then I understood how you operate. And I don't even know what this really means, but this 120 documented FTMO leaderboard entries and all these other sort of signals and proof points that you do what you say you do. So maybe give people who aren't aware of what the trading world is like, what some of the reality is, as unfortunate as it is. So they're like sort of like they have a little bit more caution when they follow people and then also speak about how you operate so that they can understand like what a legitimate professional trader does and what they should look for if, even if they don't follow you. What, just to make them aware?
- [15:39]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, well, we could go down that rabbit hole. It's like you don't even want to know how shady that business is. But you kind of also, you stated it already in a way that there's a lot of, you know, people fake screenshots, they fake trading statements because there is no, as I said, there's no real accreditation system behind like, there's no, There is in general, no third party that verifies you as a trader. Like as an kind of overarching authority in a way that hey, he is, he, he's, he can classify himself as a trader and then that's why he can teach other people or that's why he can make comments about the markets or give like trade ideas or financial advice. Doesn't necessarily exist in the trading world. And that's why I would say bad people trying to take advantage of that. So but I would like to speak more about how I operate and when that. I also realized that there is a lack of transparency when it comes to trading and trading education and you know, who is quote unquote allowed to speak about trading and not. So I ventured into prop trading beginning of 2022, sorry, mid of 2022.
- [17:08]
Scott Clary
Explain what that is exactly.
- [17:09]
Baron Skoropinski
I want to sort of. Of course I explained that because people on this channel obviously might not know what prop trading is. Prop trading stands for proprietary trading. So these are proprietary trading firms who can fund you as a trader with capital. Meaning the biggest obstacle that people usually have when it comes to the trading space is lack of capital. Right. Because even If I have $10,000 in my trading account and for a trader, you know, to make 1 to 5% a month is like realistic, reasonable, like 1 to 5%. So if I make 1% on a $10,000 account per month, it's like 100 bucks. It's not necessarily life changing.
- [18:00]
Scott Clary
It's not a lot.
- [18:01]
Baron Skoropinski
It's not a lot. So you need a lot of capital to make decent return. Because realist, we have to talk about realistic returns is to 1 to 5%. So now because of in recent days we have AI, we have machine learning, we have technology being way more advanced than back in the days. There's something called proprietary trading firms that can fund you as a trader and they fund you to $200,000, $300,000, $400,000. You can scale with multiple prop firms, they can fund you up to $1 million and you can trade with their money. So they just obviously usually how it works, they don't just, you know, here, they give you the money here, take it and trade. No, it's like almost like a driver's license that you have to pass some tests beforehand. It's like you trade the markets and if you can achieve certain percentage gains in like a certain period of time, then you're qualified to become a funded trader to get the, to get the funds. So you have to pass these tests, they call it evaluations. And if you pass these trading evaluations, you can get Funded X amount of dollars. Now, if you get funded $400,000, for instance, now 1% a month makes a big difference.
- [19:25]
Scott Clary
Much more than your 10,000. Yes.
- [19:27]
Baron Skoropinski
It's not a $4,000 and $4,000. And by the way, 1% a month is more than realistic. If you're like a skilled trader, only 1%. Right. And then if you make like 4000, 5000, $6000 a month with a funded account, well, that's a big. Makes a big difference for the general person.
- [19:48]
Scott Clary
Right, but does that not. Does some of that money not have to go back to the.
- [19:52]
Baron Skoropinski
And that's. Let me. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to Perfect. Perfect that you ask. Because, you know, now people might think, well, I'm trading so much money, what if I lose money? Now, obviously you cannot lose everything, but whatever you lose, you don't have to cover it. You don't have to pay for it because the firms, the firm is covering it all right? So you cannot lose any of your own capital. And if you gain money, if you make like, if you make like, let's, let's assume you make 1%, which is on a $400,000 account is $4,000. Usually the profit split is between 80, 20. So 80% goes to the trader and 20% goes to the firm, usually. Right. So then it's basically what, 20% of $4,000. What is it? It's $800. So 3,200 goes into my pocket and 800 goes into the firm's pocket.
- [20:44]
Scott Clary
I understand.
- [20:44]
Baron Skoropinski
So when it comes to prop trading, there's literally no downside. So usually I would say, hey, what sounds too good to be true is too good to be true. But when it comes to. And prop trading is really a game changer. However, as I said, well, when it comes to prop trading, you still need one thing. And this is skill.
- [21:04]
Scott Clary
Yes.
- [21:05]
Baron Skoropinski
And this is good. Otherwise it's like it doesn't help you in any way shape.
- [21:10]
Scott Clary
Well, no, because no firm would ever lend the money to somebody who's unskilled because it's a huge liability.
- [21:15]
Baron Skoropinski
No, because you have to make the test, usually the test in advance.
- [21:17]
Scott Clary
Right, exactly.
- [21:18]
Baron Skoropinski
You have to test. And, and that test you can repeat as many times as you want. But, well, you will never pass the test and you will never get to a real payout if you're not a skilled trader. So you still need to learn the skill, how to trade. But when it comes to the obstacle of, hey, I don't have money, that obstacle doesn't exist nowadays anymore because you have the prop firms who can fund you if you're a skilled trader. So you're. As a trader nowadays, your primary goal is to look to become skilled as a trader and then you can utilize prop firms to kind of leverage capital and scale your capital and go from there, which is amazing. That's why, you know, I also want to say I'm not affiliate to any prop firms whatsoever. I was never affiliated to anything else. Just I'm having my own business and stuff. But I feel like I'm a prop trading ambassador because it also changed my life because when I started, I didn't know anything about prop trading even. I was like, in 2022 when people first showed me, hey, look at these websites. These are prop firms. I was like, I'm not sure. This sounds so sketchy. How can this be real?
- [22:33]
Scott Clary
Well, the way that I think about it is if you're, for example, just to draw a parallel, if you're going into real estate, there's investors that have money, but they're not looking for real estate deals all day. They have people who invest in real estate for them. So if you're good at investing in turning a profit and generating return on real estate, they have capital, they give you. I assume it's a very similar mentality with these prop firms. They're looking for skilled people that can get some sort of return.
- [23:00]
Baron Skoropinski
Exactly.
- [23:00]
Scott Clary
And this is where. This is where the money. There's lots of money in this world, but.
- [23:03]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, lots of.
- [23:06]
Scott Clary
But I think that that's where, I mean, if you have the skill set, then you can, then you can take somebody's money, you be a steward of that person's money and you generate a return for them.
- [23:14]
Baron Skoropinski
Like that. Exactly. So then I went into prop training 2022, and back in the days, I had already, you know, a lot of years of experience. So for me to pass these tests was pretty easy, you know. And then I got funded. I got funded first $200,000 and then I got funded $400,000. At some point in time, I was funded 4.2 million doll prop firms together scaling. But, you know, talking about your initial question, the FTMO is. FTMO is the biggest prop firm in the world. Then, you know, I was. Then once I was funded, I received payout, monthly payout after payout. And you know, they have these leaderboards where the best traders show up with the best returns on a week, daily, weekly, monthly base. So after like one and a half years, then in the beginning of 2020, for. I was awarded for as the all time record holder for FTMO with 120 leaderboard appearances and in total until beginning of 2025, $275,000 of payout based on that $400,000 account.
- [24:20]
Scott Clary
That's amazing. And what, what makes you better? What, what makes you, what makes you able to like, is it the mindset, is it the strategy? I mean, obviously the skill is the obvious answer.
- [24:31]
Baron Skoropinski
It's just, it's the obvious answer and the simple answer. There are nuances to everything, obviously. But I would say it's just my skill that I've developed over the years. And usually in this business there are a lot of young people and they just have, don't have, they can just don't have the experience and the skill that I have just yet. And I went, and that's why I just said I went into prop trading in 2022 and I had already close to, I don't know, seven, eight years of full time trading experience. So for me it was like, you know, like, okay, I was already Formula one driver, metaphorically speaking, so I was just sitting into another car and driving it, you know, safely. Whereas when somebody's new to that or has like little experience getting into a Formula one car, they're going to crash the car continuously, you know.
- [25:21]
Scott Clary
Do you think that there is. If you were going to boil down your experience outside of just putting in the reps, is there something that a successful trader, the way they think or the way they operate?
- [25:30]
Baron Skoropinski
Yes. You know, I always like to say the end game of trading is once you get detached from money, you get detached from the money. Because trading is literally a process game. You follow a process, a certain process that is repeat, that is objective and that is repeatable. And that process you follow for each and every trade, it's a repeatable process. It's quite boring, to be honest. It has to be boring. And you know, the result is the money. So if you follow the process right every single time, the end result of following the process correctly is money. So money can never be in front of the entire equation. Money is always at the end of the equation. You know, the process comes first. So I felt like once I slowly got. And in the beginning, and I get it, we are all also in for the money. It's part of the game. Trading is to make money. But you know, once you, in the beginning when, when you're very money centered, very money focused, you're chasing the money and then you're making also bad decision, usually because you're acting emotionally based on fear or creed or whatever. But once you establish like really a trading strategy, it's called the trading strategy which is then basically following that process. That process is your trading strategy that you have written down in your trading slash business plan. Because you're running a business in this case, so you have to have. And again I'm asking people, hey, you're a trader, so do you have a trading plan meaning slash business plan?
- [27:15]
Scott Clary
But all the best ones would, all.
- [27:17]
Baron Skoropinski
The best ones would have. Exactly. Because this is where you write down nitty gritty. Your, your, your, your, your trading plan, your rules basically to follow your process.
- [27:25]
Scott Clary
When you, so when you work with like these prop firms before you even get so say for somebody who's starting out with trading, so you, you focus on swing trading, you obviously have your trading strategy. This trading strategy yields x percent per month in returns. This is. And you've passed all the tests now you have the prop money. If somebody's just getting started, they want to get to where you are, which is obviously 11, 12, 13 years of experience, but they want to do, they want to get to where you are in the quickest way possible. So do you recommend a certain kind of asset that you invest in? Do you recommend swing trading as sort of like the least stressful form of trading? Like what are sort of like the, the main things that they should focus on out of the gate so that they don't maybe waste as much time getting to where you got.
- [28:13]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, that's a diff. That's usually a difficult question because these days it's, you know, you have to imagine when I started off like 13 years ago, the world looked different. Especially, especially when it comes to the online social media trading space I call it. There was much less noise these days. It's so hard, right? I mean if you just, if you just type into Google, learning how to trade or how to learn, you know, how to trade, the amount of information you get, it's like information overload. So it's really difficult, difficult for people to. I don't want to get started these days. I'm glad that I'm like already done with that. But that's why there's no real answer to that. So what I tell people is don't focus like you don't focus on one asset. Like I consider myself a multi asset trader trading forex futures and stocks. So everything. So there's something like called the power of correlated markets, right? Multi asset. You have multi asset correlations. Stocks impact equity indices, equity indices impact crypto and you have like currencies, the dollar impacting all the other currency. Like it's like it's all kind of correlated in a way.
- [29:30]
Scott Clary
You see these patterns across all these different assets.
- [29:33]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very predictable on a longer term horizon. So, so that's why I would not focus necessarily on specific asset classes, but on more like learning the skill, meaning the strategy. And the strategy should be applicable on all asset classes. It should not be a strategy that. Because these days you see on social media, hey, this strategy is only applicable on one single market, which is then usually for me, it's already red flag. Because if you have a strategy, that strategy should work on just any chart on any market that you look at. So you can objectively analyze the market. You could, you should even like, okay, I don't even know. I just see the chart. I don't even know what market that is. Could be, could be Bitcoin, could be the Dow Jones, could be Euro. But you can objectively analyze the market and anticipate with a very high probability what is about to happen next in the, in the near future without even knowing what, what market it is exactly. Without even knowing it is. And that should be your strategy, should be capable of doing exactly that. So make sure you learn the right strategy. And everything else is then just coming on top. Right? But the foundation, it's like a house of cards, right? Your foundation is basically your strategy. You're building your skill and that should be like correct. Everything else is if you build on a faulty strategy, on a faulty base, then it just needs that, it will fall apart.
- [31:07]
Scott Clary
Is there any other benefit outside of capital? So unlimited, truly unlimited upside. If you know what you're doing and you have the skill set, there's limited downside because the firm covers the downside.
- [31:22]
Baron Skoropinski
If you just pay for the tests.
- [31:23]
Scott Clary
Understood. Is there benefit outside of capital that working? Because again, I would actually ask, is there a certain point when, if you do make enough money, does it actually make sense for you to keep borrowing from a prop firm for capital? Or does it make sense for you to just go it on your own?
- [31:39]
Baron Skoropinski
No, you can do both in parallel as well, right? Then you scale even more. It's all about scaling capital at the end of the day. But you know, for me, Essen, because I consider myself also an educator, online educator. I'm in the social media space educating people. For me, it was actually when I went into prop trading, it was more about. It was not about the money, it was more about, hey there, you get like third Party verified results. So you get literally. And if you go on my social media, you see these payout certificates, in this case FTMO payout certificates where you have a QR code on it, you can scan it on the phone and then you get led on another website from FTMO and see if this, if it's real. So then it's third party verified. So for me it was always like as an educator, as we established in the beginning, there's no real certification accreditation system, overarching, you know, system that can verify that you're a trader or not. You need to, if you're like an ethical person, you need to find ways to verify yourself. So I saw this kind of wow, cool. I get these payout certificates every other month and they have like these QR codes, they are third party verified by this company. So this verifies me as a real trader because I can literally, I'm like quote unquote, the needle in the haystack because I can have these certifications that others don't. So for me it's like, okay, this is like my proof, my way to show transparent results in a way to have like, okay, look, I have that. Hardly anybody has that as well. So you know, it sets you apart. It sets me apart.
- [33:22]
Scott Clary
Is that really how bad the industry is? It's so few people are legitimate, it's even worse.
- [33:27]
Baron Skoropinski
But I don't want to scare the people here because obviously there's also.
- [33:31]
Scott Clary
No, but you're giving people ways to verify.
- [33:33]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, yeah, you're giving exactly. And that's so, that's so good. So don't just trust any kind of. Hey. Because what people do, they take their mobile, they show it into the camera. Look how much money I made. This is like, you know, the young audience on social media. Look how much money I made today. I bought, I buy this new car now and so don't believe in this kind of nonsense. Right. Get find traders who have some verified documents, results maybe from prop firms or third party companies, whatever it is, but find something that is legit and don't follow just like some simple screenshots.
- [34:08]
Scott Clary
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- [36:58]
Baron Skoropinski
So I'm trying to do this as to explain it as simple as possible. We already established that trading is being categorized in scalping, which I would never recommend. It's like high frequency trading. You have day trading where you execute on also quote unquote smaller time frames where you look at 5 minute charts, 10 minute charts, 15 minute charts where you execute in a minute, in that minute. And you know, trades last maybe for maximum 60 minutes, maybe between 5 minutes to 60 minutes. So very short period. So very short time horizon. Like within the day you, you literally close your trades on the same day, right? And then you have swing trading where I for myself, but I'm now a professional trader, I analyze the markets during the weekend, markets are closed. And then I make my setups, my trade watch list, so to speak, the markets that I'm interested to trade. And then when the week starts, whether it's Monday, Tuesday, I can place these trades in advance. So the market is not. The market is basically. So when I want to, let's assume like I'm trading equity indices or let's, let's assume I'm trading stocks Apple. So I'm highlighting an area where it's like, oh, if price comes down here, I want to buy Apple. But only if price comes down here, I want to buy at a quote unquote discounted price for me, right? If price never comes down here, I never going to buy Apple. But if price comes down here to that certain area where I defined, hey, this is a discounted price, so to speak. I want to buy Apple, right? So I can set these trades in advance, right? That's why I call it set and forget and get alive. So you set these levels in advance, these trades in advance and then you see if the market's going to play out or not.
- [38:47]
Scott Clary
And if it doesn't and doesn't move in that direction, then you don't lose anything.
- [38:50]
Baron Skoropinski
I don't lose anything. And even if I lose something because you have, as a professional trader, every trade consists three elements. You have an entry point where you enter the market, a stop loss, which is your safety net. And this is when I say trading is a. Is trading is always calculated. Risk is less risky than any other business because the difference between, so the gap between entry and stop Loss. This is your risk.
- [39:12]
Scott Clary
Yes.
- [39:13]
Baron Skoropinski
So and you define that risk, you define how much risk you're going to take. Am I going to take $1000 risk on this trade? Am I going to take $5000 risk on this trade? Am I take 50 bucks risk on this trade? Right. Any number you define. So if it hits your stop loss, if you are proven wrong because trading is about also being wr, then it hits your stop loss. But you predetermined the amount you're gonna lose, then you move on and you move to the next trade. And the third element of a trade is your target. So if it goes into a discounted price, if you buy it and you were right, it goes into your target, you make X amount of profit. Right. We call this again we could go deep into this rabbit hole. Risk to reward proposition you always try to make. For every dollar you risk, you would try to make two bucks. So you have a one to two risk to reward proposition in trading.
- [39:59]
Scott Clary
And if you do this, this is a weekly where you look at the markets. How many, how many bets are you making? So how many ideas do you have?
- [40:06]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, so yeah, exactly. And this is depends on the market. And then again you on, on the new place, your trades and then you really throughout the week you basically need again as a professional, if you already skilled. Yeah, right. We talk about me as a skilled.
- [40:20]
Scott Clary
Trader and you know what you're looking for.
- [40:22]
Baron Skoropinski
Exactly.
- [40:22]
Scott Clary
You understand trends.
- [40:23]
Baron Skoropinski
Me, it takes me, me then you know, during the day, 15 to 30 minutes maximum. I don't, don't even say an hour because it never takes me an hour on a daily basis to kind of follow up with my trades, look at the market, what's happening and that's it. Right?
- [40:39]
Scott Clary
Very. It's not a lot of time.
- [40:41]
Baron Skoropinski
And that's why it's. Exactly. So with this kind of trading approach as a professional. Right. Obviously again if you're new to it, you need much more screen time. You need to learn. Right. Nobody can take away the screen time. We talk about me as a professional. And it takes literally no time at all during the week to do like sit in front of the screen and really actively trade. It's basically just following up. Right. And this is what I also firmly believe in because this gives you so much time, freedom and flexibility.
- [41:14]
Scott Clary
Yeah, that's amazing.
- [41:15]
Baron Skoropinski
And then, and sometimes people criticize, they say yeah, but you barely have any trades. But when you say like a day trader who trades maybe takes five to ten trades a day versus me who takes one or two trades a Week. And then people have that preconceived notion about higher frequency of trades equals more money. Right. More trades makes more money. That's what people might think, but it's actually the opposite. More trades, usually because you take lower quality of trades, you make more human mistakes. You actually usually what I seen based on my experience, more trades results in losing more money. Actually in the opposite because also here when it comes to trading, the only variable that people also usually don't understand, the only variable that is important is scaling capital. That's why also when it comes to trading, trading is one of the only business in the, in the world where you, where if you want to make more money, you don't have to invest more of your own time because the only variable is scaling capital. You have to imagine the strategy, the foundation, the way how I execute is always the same. The only thing that changes is my capital.
- [42:32]
Scott Clary
So it's leverage.
- [42:33]
Baron Skoropinski
It's the leverage. Exactly right. So that's why trading is, that's why I consider trading the best side hustle in the world. Because it never requires more time to make more money. It only requires what? More capital. And you can get more capital through prop firms.
- [42:45]
Scott Clary
These days, people, people seem to, they just rush.
- [42:50]
Baron Skoropinski
They rush. But this the mentality these days.
- [42:53]
Scott Clary
Yeah, they just rush because there's so many different shiny objects that people on social media dangle in front of them and I think they just get overwhelmed and they just try, they try everything. They lose money. Oh, it's not for me.
- [43:05]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah. And they blame everything but themselves. That's a problem. Yes. They're not self accountable.
- [43:13]
Scott Clary
Yeah, that's a big problem. It's a huge problem. There's so many words associated with trading. So there's futures, there's using leverage, like not financial leverage but there's using like leverage on the money that you have. There's options like simplify it. What are all these different things? There's futures. Like what are all these different things that people are trading? What should is this stuff that's just more confusing than anything? Like is there something that you just focus on to start because all these different like asset classes. But then there's different ways to look at every single asset class. And I think again for the average person it just gets very overwhelming.
- [43:47]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, it's very overwhelming. I mean I, when I started trading, I started trading stocks first for one.
- [43:53]
Scott Clary
Stocks are easy. It makes sense. Very easy.
- [43:58]
Baron Skoropinski
Very easy.
- [43:59]
Scott Clary
Right.
- [44:00]
Baron Skoropinski
And then I was introduced to futures and when I was introduced to futures, all of a sudden I Was so you can trade these markets, right? You can trade leveraged markets. Now I was then realizing, wow, why did I ever trade at stocks? Because this is so much more efficient to trade. I need less capital and I can make the same amount of gains. And again, we talk about calculated risk, so the risk doesn't make any difference whether I trade non leveraged market or leveraged market. You as a trader should always, you should always in advance how much money you risk on a particular trade. I hope we established this by now for the audience. So really, leverage is not a deal breaker at all. Leverage is actually helpful because leverage can help you trade with less money and make the same returns. So leverage should be your friend, not your enemy, if you do it right. So then I was introduced to futures and then in the futures market you can trade all these markets like equity indices, right? Dow Jones, NASDAQ S&P. Russell. You can trade commodities, precious metals, gold, silver and so on and so forth. And you can trade agricultural products, corn, soybeans, wheat, like it's crazy. And you can trade currencies as well, the Euro, dollar dollar index, the Mexican peso, whatever. You can trade literally all the markets in the world with futures. So then I was, and I was like, okay, why did I ever trade at stocks if I can trade futures, right? So then I was trading my whole life futures. So I consider myself actually a futures trader. But then because of prop trading, because prop trading is very popular in the FX space, in the forex space. Forex in general has a bad, also bad rep because it's unregulated. And usually a lot of scams happen in the forex market. But the problem is that it's not the market, it's not the market's fault, it's the people's fault all the time. So don't blame fx. FX is not the black sheep. FX is just a market, it's just an asset class. Exactly. Like nobody says stocks are scam, right? Well, they might be even quote unquote, more scam because they can be, you know, manipulated by a single individual because the volume is not so high then.
- [46:08]
Scott Clary
As opposed to like a currency.
- [46:09]
Baron Skoropinski
Currency, exactly. Not a single person can manipulate it. But we have seen that stocks can be manipulated by single people, so powerful people. So don't blame the market as scammy, blame the people behind who like offering certain products. So it's just another asset class. So. And then obviously I went into, because fx, by the way, FX is not necessarily only forex, you can also trade equity indices in the FX space you can trade even stocks. In the FX space, you can trade all the markets that are inside the stock market, inside the futures market. In the FX space, FX stands, it's just the umbrella for then you have derivative market.
- [46:51]
Scott Clary
And can prop trading be applied to actually also help me understand this thing. What's the difference between leverage and prop trading? Because there's a difference?
- [46:59]
Baron Skoropinski
Well, no, no, because prop trading is so usually prop trading, you have futures prop trading, you have FX prop trading.
- [47:08]
Scott Clary
Prop trading can apply to anything.
- [47:09]
Baron Skoropinski
Prop trading can apply to anything. Even to, there's even like prop trading firms that offer just, it's just for stocks trading. So prop trading is just the umbrella and then you just put the asset below and then you trade. You do like futures, prop trading, FX prop trading, stocks, prop trading. But the concept is usually similar or the same. And usually all these are leveraged markets.
- [47:35]
Scott Clary
Dennis, all leveraged markets. So when, when there's news headlines like people in crypto get wiped out because they're over leveraged, what did they do wrong?
- [47:46]
Baron Skoropinski
They bet their house on it.
- [47:48]
Scott Clary
So they said, they said, I I want leverage. I want, because I, I, I just, I've only really learned about this in the past week and it's like I want 5x10x20x100x leverage. So I've learned that you have your, you have your capital and then you leverage your capital. But if it, if so it can go unlimited upside, but if it goes down too much.
- [48:09]
Baron Skoropinski
So it's very simple. Like, like if in, in the FX space you have firms that let's, they have, you have 1 to 100 leverage, meaning you have a thousand dollars, you buy like they call it one lot or one contract depending on what asset class you're trading. And then you're controlling $100,000 of capital with like $1,000 of your own money. Right. So you use that $1,000 of your own money as a deposit and you can control $100,000 of capital. Now. And people play this game. Imagine you have a $50,000 account and then you have 100x leverage. Like imagine how much you can control and then people just risk too much money.
- [48:49]
Scott Clary
So they risk too much of their own money.
- [48:51]
Baron Skoropinski
Exactly. So then it's very simple. Exactly. But then it's very easy because then they don't have proper risk management in place. They don't have these stop losses in place. They risk way too much money than they have in their own account as a deposit on a simple trade because they hope in their mind Hey, I bet all that money. It just has to go a little bit into my direction and I make like 2, 3, 4x on a single trade in like in a quick period of time. It's uneducated greed, wrong mind. It's everything.
- [49:21]
Scott Clary
Because leverage is then different than prop trading. Because prop trading you can't lose your principle, I'm assuming if it goes down to a certain point, but, well, you.
- [49:29]
Baron Skoropinski
Can lose, then you will lose the account. You will lose your, you will lose the account. Right. If you, if you, if you. So, so now if you use leverage with your own capital and you use leverage unresponsibly, you basically can wipe out your account in seconds, minutes, days. And it's very likely that eventually we call it the beginner's luck phenomenon. It's like you're lucky one, you're lucky twice, you're lucky three times, but eventually it will bite you in the butt and you will lose everything.
- [50:00]
Scott Clary
Like what happened with crypto.
- [50:01]
Baron Skoropinski
Exactly. In prop trading you use also the same principle, leverage, but you don't use your own capital. So the only thing that can happen is you, well, you're going to lose your, your account that you paid the test for, but you don't lose anything from your own hard earned capital.
- [50:15]
Scott Clary
When you, on the weekend, you're looking at what you're going to do for the week. What are you looking at? That retail trade. Like retail investors, maybe they miss like. Are you looking at what Trump's saying? Are you looking at.
- [50:26]
Baron Skoropinski
Oh, no, I don't know, I don't know.
- [50:28]
Scott Clary
Because this is what seems to move markets now. It's just the chaos, but you seem to find a way to be successful.
- [50:34]
Baron Skoropinski
And that's again, it's a very preconceived thought and it's a myth as well, by the way. Because if I, let's assume, because we established, or I tried to establish that we are following a process and the process has to be repeatable and objective. Now if I look what Trump said, is that repeatable? Is that objective?
- [50:53]
Scott Clary
Not at all. Not at all.
- [50:55]
Baron Skoropinski
Not at all. Right. It's the exact opposite of what I'm trying to convey, what I'm trying to do with my, what I'm doing with my strategy. So I try and I do this quite well. I really, I don't know anything about what's like, I'm really like shutting down my doors, my ears, I'm not listening to any outside noise. I couldn't care less. I only try and I'm only what I'M doing is what is in front of my screen, analyze what I can objectively analyze on that particular market. And again, this is, I don't want to go too deep into this rabbit hole because again, this might be overwhelming to people, especially for the people who have maybe never seen a chart or never really analyzed something. But I like to combine something that is called. I call it a two step mechanical process. I look at certain fundamentals to create a market bias, to be like, whether I'm biased, bullish or bearish. And once I'm like biased in a market, fundamentally I use technical. So a chart itself to time my market, to place my entry, stop loss and my target.
- [52:02]
Scott Clary
Very smart. And this is, so this is like, listen, again, I'm probably one of these people that just invest casually. But I still understand because I, you know, sometimes I live on Twitter and I see what people are talking about and I still understand that people, like, look at how charts are trending and they try and sort of map out where it's going to go into the future. So there's validity to this. And this is what you're looking at as opposed to reading news or listening to what Trump's saying or wondering what's happening in Ukraine. Like, you are not paying attention to that.
- [52:30]
Baron Skoropinski
I'm not paying attention at all to that. Not at all. I don't even sometimes know what's going on. I don't want to even know because it could, like, even subconsciously, maybe it probably could.
- [52:40]
Scott Clary
You're human.
- [52:41]
Baron Skoropinski
I'm human. Exactly. Influence, you know, my decision making. So I'm trying to really. I'm never watching news, don't look at headlines. I'm trying to at least, and just do, you know, my thing. Because it's proven to work. Right. And as I'm trying to convey this message because people sometimes say, yeah, the market is moving now because he said that, he tweeted that. And this because this and that is happening. No, the market is moving for way other reasons. Because not somebody tweeted. Because there's other factors why a market is moving and not because a random guy. Okay, not random, but because a guy is tweeting something. This is nonsense.
- [53:19]
Scott Clary
When, when you look at the biggest misconception you mentioned, this is one of them. But other big misconceptions that people have.
- [53:25]
Baron Skoropinski
About trading, they are very basic misconceptions, like you need to be, you need, you need to be the smartest guy in the room to make it in trading. I might, I might sound too complicated for a lot of people who are watching as well. But I always say I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Never ever. Like I was less than average in school and university and I barely made it. So. So I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Trading is a skill then can be in theory learned by everybody if you do it the right way. So it's a skill then also when it comes to trading, you don't need like 5 trillion what you see in movies and on social media that people have like these walls full of screen and wow, it's like overwhelming. Like one single laptop is more than enough. You can and you know, you don't need any kind of advanced software. Everything these days is browser based. So when it comes to people are sometimes afraid. Wow. Because of technology they might be not too advanced. They're older generation. That's why they are like maybe hesitant to get started.
- [54:21]
Scott Clary
You do see some pretty ridiculous things on YouTube and Instagram with like the, the. The five different screens.
- [54:27]
Baron Skoropinski
Even I have that. But you know, I'm even I have that, you know and my. Maybe you've seen it in my YouTube videos in the background. But it's not, it's really just for. I love tech and it's just for show of purpose. You know on.
- [54:39]
Scott Clary
It makes the video look good.
- [54:40]
Baron Skoropinski
It makes the video look good. But I don't need it to be a better trader. I like I.
- [54:45]
Scott Clary
That's real. That's real.
- [54:47]
Baron Skoropinski
I'm saying that I can say that. So that's one. And then you know, sometimes people don't also if you're really completely new to the markets that when it comes to professional trading that trading is also great because it's recession proof. Because you can make money on both sides, upside and downside. Right. You can make money on buying something, but you can make money on shorting something which is basically a reverse trade, so to speak, in very simple terms. So it's recession proof. So it's great that you don't have to care about how the economy is going to do and like it's doing because you can make money on both.
- [55:20]
Scott Clary
This is a very useful skill then.
- [55:21]
Baron Skoropinski
It's a very useful skill. Exactly. Where you can survive during times of recessions or even depressions. Who knows, right.
- [55:29]
Scott Clary
So if you look at right now you trade forex, futures, stocks, you still trade all the. Is there anything else that you trade that.
- [55:36]
Baron Skoropinski
No, that's basically these are the main one. These are also the asset classes, right? I mean, yes, they are not option is not an asset class. It's just a derivative, like. Exactly so. And crypto can be these days also considered as an asset class. I'm not actively trading crypto.
- [55:50]
Scott Clary
Why not?
- [55:51]
Baron Skoropinski
And I'm old school. I never really needed crypto to make money and I just stick to my guns. So I feel like when it comes to crypto. And I might gain a little bit of hate when I say that, but that crypto especially, you know, the entry barrier is even lower and especially with these altcoins and stuff like whatever they are.
- [56:19]
Scott Clary
That's because even if you apply these fundamental principles to it, bad actors can influence something more than. So you're trying to eliminate all the variables.
- [56:28]
Baron Skoropinski
I'm trying to eliminate. Exactly. And attracts a lot of people who, with the wrong mindset, who just wants to make quick, quick money. Who buys. Who buy like one shitcoin and hope for like the 100x that solves all their problems that accumulated throughout their lives. It attracts a lot of these people. So if you want to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum, like professionally, that's perfect. But everything else I find a little bit.
- [56:54]
Scott Clary
Yeah. Because then you can't. Then you can't apply the same pattern.
- [56:57]
Baron Skoropinski
You can. Exactly. So you cannot apply the same patterns that I'm using. Exactly.
- [57:01]
Scott Clary
So when you think about, you know, going into 2024, 2025 and 2026, like what is market outlook for some of the things that you do focus on, so forex futures and stocks.
- [57:11]
Baron Skoropinski
Wow. So this is also like a topic we could fill a whole podcast with, to be honest. And what I'm doing is always. And people find it on my YouTube channel. I have my YouTube channel now since roughly two and a half years. It's going very well and 150,000 subscribers doing really well. And I'm sharing a lot of free value there. And in the beginning of the year and like usually mid year or if there's some important events or anything happening in the market. I do some market outlooks in the beginning of the year. I always do like some stock market outlooks like for the equity indices, for the Dow Jones, for the whole, like for the whole US Stock market, basically. And I have to say these. And people can watch that. These are, these are online on my YouTube channel, Fully Transparent. These outlooks are pretty accurate that I make for always the years ahead. For the year ahead. And so because it's most, most, most likely the viewers are US based, your viewers. Right. So they are maybe interested about kind of a stock market outlook. Right. I think Everybody, Everybody is. For now. It's quite interesting because there's something called. And let me elaborate a little bit on that.
- [58:29]
Scott Clary
Yeah, for sure.
- [58:30]
Baron Skoropinski
There's something called President election cycle seasonality. These are market cycles. So the US President is being elected every four years. So this market cycle, every year is a separate market cycle. So you have election year cycle, you have after the election year cycle, you have the post election year cycle. We are right now in the post election year cycle. Then you have the midterm cycle and then you have the pre election cycle where the whole thing starts again and then you have again the whole four year market cycle starts again. And the stock market behaves quite interestingly for whatever reason. We don't know the reason but it does statistically proven behaves very accurately based on these four cycles. And you can prove this because the Dow Jones exists since 130 years and you look at these single year cycles and you accumulate them and you get a very nice, it's called seasonality. That's why it's called election cycle seasonality. You get a pretty throughout the years, throughout the country quarters of these cycles you get a very accurate trend how the market is behaving. It's super interesting and it works very, very well. So we are, and that's why in beginning of 2025 it's post election we are in, we are right now in a post election cycle. So post election cycles they do very, very well. So on average post election cycles they have a 9 to 10. I don't, don't quote me on the exact return but it's, I have them on my mobile but on average I think 9 to 10% return on post election.
- [60:19]
Scott Clary
Very good.
- [60:19]
Baron Skoropinski
It's very good. Exactly. It's actually the second best cycle of them all. The best one is pre election cycle. I think again I have the exact numbers on my phone but don't quote me on that. It's also not so important right now. What is important is that post election cycles are always super, super strong and they're always ending up. Well you're ending up if you bought in the beginning of the year, one of the indices, whether it's the S and P, the Dow or the nasdaq, you're ending up with a positive return with a big positive return. And I made these predictions, you know, in the beginning of the year and then give like these outlooks and then I always like so surprised by all these crash profits who are saying oh this year the market is you know, going to, going down and we are like seeing another recession and it's like Armageddon is in front of the door.
- [61:11]
Scott Clary
Every year it's like that.
- [61:12]
Baron Skoropinski
Every year is like that. And you have like famous people saying that, like people who are kind of quote unquote credible when it comes to the financial market, what's going on.
- [61:22]
Scott Clary
They're just not thinking it's.
- [61:23]
Baron Skoropinski
Or they're just, I'm not sure if, like, I don't, I'm not sure if they do it for, if people I. If they do it for clicks or whether they're doing it for. They really don't know or they're doing it for. I don't know. Just. I really don't know. Maybe they just really have no idea what's going on and what, what tools you can use to anticipate the market. So. And there's something called the end of the Q4, the end of the year rally in post election cycles. And it's super strong. And if you look at the Nasdaq for instance, so it's mid October, if you buy the Nasdaq first of November until end of December, in post election cycle years, out of the six post election cycle years, the Nasdaq always gained at least 6.84% or so, roughly roughly 7% gain. If you just bought the Nasdaq in November 1st of November, held the Nasdaq until end of December on average in post election cycle years. In the past six post election cycle years, you made on average roughly 7% gain and you never lost. So it's like statistically proven that hey, if you buy the Nasdaq in post election cycle years, in this period of time, it's very likely, it's high probability that you can make money. Right. And this is how I look at the markets in this case in equity indices all the time.
- [62:49]
Scott Clary
How many more cycles are there like that? Across every.
- [62:54]
Baron Skoropinski
There's a lot of stuff. Exactly. But.
- [62:56]
Scott Clary
So you just have these cycles that you know and then.
- [62:58]
Baron Skoropinski
But for equity indices, the cycles are really, really important because the President election impacts the markets so, so much. And by the way, what is also statistically proven that it doesn't matter whether it's like a Democrat sitting as a president or whether it's a Republican, the markets still move the same way. Right. Because people are always, I'm always. This is always funny. If you watch it, like in the media outlets, they're questioning what happens if print becomes president, what happens if X becomes president? Like, how does this influence the market? It doesn't. The market moves because of these election cycle seasonality, these election cycle seasonality because of these market cycles, regardless whether it's Democrats or Republicans. And this is statistically proven. This is really, really interesting. Plus I could go even deeper down that rabbit hole and let me do this for five minutes because it's super interesting. There's something called the decennial patterns. And the decennial patterns, this was researched by a guy called Edgar Lawrence Smith. He was a trader. He was born in also, you don't quote me on the dates, I think 1881 and died in 1971. So he was very, very old. And nobody knows this guy Edgar Lawrence Smith. But Warren Buffett once said, to quote Warren Buffett, Edgar Lawrence Smith is one of the best trader he has ever witnessed. So why did Warren Buffett say that? So Warren Buffett looked at the Dow Jones performance since start of the Dow Jones 130 years back. And he checked the Dow Jones performance in every single year. So years ending with 0, years ending with 1, years ending with 2, years ending with 3, years ending with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 0. And looking at every century. And then he was looking, hey, can I make an assumption how the market is behaving based on the year ending with 5 or years ending with 3? Is there any kind of statistical evidence that a market, that the stock market with the year ending with 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 is moving in a certain way? So he died 1970 something. So he couldn't continue his study. But there are people who continued the study and I, we as a team, I'm also continuing doing his study because the finding is crazy. You have to imagine that years ending with five, we are now in 2025. Right? It's. So this is called the decennial pattern. Overall, so we are now in the year ending with five. So 2025-2015-1995-1985 and so on. So all the years ending with five, if you had just bought the Dow Jones or like any of the indices, but in this case the study is done on the Dow Jones because of the 130 years of existence. If you just had bought the Dow Jones in the years ending with 5 out of 14 years ending with 5, you would have made 13 gains and only one loss. And that loss would have been like almost a break even trade, 0.1% down. Yeah. And overall a cumulative profit of roughly 300%. That's why the years ending with five, Edgar Lawrence Smith considered or called it the phenomenal five. So years ending with fives are always exceptionally strong. So to combine now presidential election cycle, which is we are in post election cycle. It's very strong plus decennial pattern. We in the year ending with five. So it's a phenomenal five that combined in the beginning of the year. I was like, who does? Whoever is not buying stocks is stupid.
- [67:08]
Scott Clary
Yeah, yeah.
- [67:08]
Baron Skoropinski
I made this video out. I made the out. I made these outlooks twice. I had two 20, 25 outlooks on my YouTube channel. Fully transparent. I said, guys, it's time to buy. We are in decennial pattern. Years ending with 5 in post election cycle. Regardless of what you hear, regardless of the chit chatter, you know, whether there's war or not war, like whatever Trump is saying, the mark is going to be bullish as hell because of these two statistical reasons. It's crazy. It's really insane. And people don't know about that stuff. Or maybe they know and they want to, don't want to publicly, you know, like, and with all transparency I'm like putting it out and people should see that because it's so important for people like for investing purpose. It's tremendously important.
- [67:53]
Scott Clary
I agree. Most people don't know that. Why don't they put it out? I don't know. I feel like most people make the assumption, the incorrect assumption that again world events impact markets more than these decade long patterns.
- [68:04]
Baron Skoropinski
But it's interesting because throughout the past hundred years you have wars, you had wars, you have catastrophes, you have like external events that you cannot influence. You have so many things happening but the market is still behaving in the same rhythm. Statistically proven. There's no, no one understands why nobody cares. I mean you don't have to care. And, and that's, and that's, and it's, and it's so good about trading. I don't know why this is why this is the case. Are there deep forces? Like, you know, like it's. We just don't know and I don't care. I just know. Hey, and this is very important like from a mindset point of view as a trader, like to really, okay, does this information here can make me money objectively? Yes or no? Can this add to the probability of my trade? Yes or no? If there's a no, exclude it from your trading strategy. If it's yes, then perfect.
- [69:01]
Scott Clary
Because you have to be careful. Like now when you have decades of data, obviously there's no bias involved. But if you have a short term amount of data, like a short, short, like if you look over 10 years and you don't have like historical examples, then you can make mistakes based on some sort of biases that you have. But not if you have like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of data.
- [69:22]
Baron Skoropinski
Enough. It's, it's enough statistical evidence to make like to get into, to become fundamentally biased. Meaning am I bullish this year, this quarter, this week, or am I bearish this month, this year, this quarter or am I neutral? And if I'm neutral, I don't have any kind of statistical edge so I'm staying away from the mark.
- [69:44]
Scott Clary
And when you have, so these are obviously multi decade signals that you can pay attention to. Are there, are there similar types of cycles on like a shorter term, on like a, on like a weekly basis that you look.
- [69:58]
Baron Skoropinski
Oh yeah, 100%. So on a NASDAQ I, I also don't know the dates like from top of my head. I just know roughly.
- [70:05]
Scott Clary
So yeah, forgive you for not knowing every single date. It's okay, we understand. The information is so good. Forget the dates.
- [70:13]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, I want to be like always 100 accurate. And you know when you are like everything is recorded so.
- [70:17]
Scott Clary
I know, I know, but that's why.
- [70:19]
Baron Skoropinski
I say don't quote me for the exact date.
- [70:20]
Scott Clary
Give, give him some grace on the dates. So excuse his information to make Money.
- [70:25]
Baron Skoropinski
Next year, 2026, we're in midterm election cycle and by the way, this is the worst of all cycles. This is a really bad cycle and so I wouldn't expect massive gains next year. Not at all. And by the way, I'm not a crash profit. I always say the markets are bullish based on all like the videos that I made. But next year it's the first year where I say guys, pay attention. It's could be a little bit shaky because we're in midterm election cycle and these are usually weak. They're like, there's almost no gain, no percentage return on midterm cycles in midterm years and especially the nasdaq. If you look at, and when you, because you said like are there certain weeks. Yes. So mid of January into February, I don't know, it is like a two week, three week period. Again, don't quote me on the dates. There's literally if you just trade the nasdaq, if you just bought the nasdaq, you would have always lost money. Actually this is a time where usually I would not recommend shorting indices like selling to enter, making money on the downside, but in this case it's like a period where it's like from mid January to into February. It's a few weeks where the Nasdaq is actually losing on average in these midterm years. Also roughly 5 to 6%. So big drawdown. So look, look to look to exit or like a short Nasdaq like mid beginning mid January to like early February. Because this is usually where the Nasdaq is super, super weak. And this is 2026 because it's midterm.
- [72:02]
Scott Clary
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- [74:45]
Baron Skoropinski
Trader in a simple way. Exactly. You layer in all statistical evidence that this was just an example for equity indices. I like to look at decennial patterns and election cycle seasonality. This is part of the strategy when I trade equity indices, right? So I layer in all the statistical evidence. The more the better, right? Because then since I have more evidence, I have more probability. Because trading is all about probability. Trading is all about probability. But if you have all these layers of evidence, you have these data points, you have a lot of evidence, meaning you can add more probability in your favor.
- [75:31]
Scott Clary
What do you think about, like, algorithm trading? Like when people are trying to layer AI into trading and whatnot?
- [75:37]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah.
- [75:39]
Scott Clary
And the reason why, I'll tell you why I ask, obviously, because it's topical now. And I have friends that have lost a lot of money trusting somebody who had AI that was supposed to trade for them. But I have a lot of smart people that are trying to figure it out in my circle of friends that are trying to figure out, okay, how do we leverage AI to make perfect trades all the time? Because of course, AI is just aggregating huge amounts of data. And that's really what AI is.
- [76:02]
Baron Skoropinski
And it's basically, look, using a lot of data, right, to come to a conclusion, but. To come to a conclusion, but it's. There will be. Always. So for, for. That's. That's like kind of the mindset of finding a shortcut, you know, like finding that, that magic program, bot, AI, whatever, however you want to call it. But that magic button that can generate profits without you having skill, that's a fairy tale. You know, I have to say it how it is like for retail traders out there, for us, retail traders are individual traders like you and me, right? We are retail traders. There will never be any kind of magic button that you don't need really like where you don't require skill to apply some strategy or like years of knowledge and skill skill to make money. That magic button doesn't exist and will not exist because if that magic button, if somebody, if somebody is like super, super smart and develops that magic button, he will not offer it for like 50 bucks on like any kind of social media platform to sell.
- [77:11]
Scott Clary
Like wasn't this magic button like Renaissance technologies to a degree. You know, Renaissance technology is one of the most successful in the world. Right. At trading. I don't even think think in their, in their main fund. I don't even think they allow people anymore. But that was, I think his returns were just incredible.
- [77:26]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah. But for, there's nobody out there who can develop that like a single individual that is in our capabilities develops that magic button or can, or setting that magic button who can make profits without you needing to do anything. Right. Doesn't. So obviously you have firms and big firms like, like BlackRock, Vanguard and stuff like they use AI but they're way smarter than we, you know, they have way more power, influence resources than we do. And this is a different story. But we talk about us single individuals want to survive in the market, trade the market for us. No way. This is a fairy tale.
- [78:09]
Scott Clary
Just a couple more things that I thought were interesting from sort of the philosophy and the mindset of a trader, which I think will be useful just for the audience and especially if somebody's like looking to get into trading for the first time. So you mentioned the set and forget and get a life philosophy. Where did that come from? Why was that important to you? Why would you recommend. Because we've touched on. You don't want to create a full time job. How is that important for you? And what would you recommend other people think about when they start trading?
- [78:37]
Baron Skoropinski
That's exactly the reason. Because I, when I, I went into trading, I went into trading because people went. Usually people go into trading for deeper reasons, not only necessarily about the money. So if you ask people why do you want to trade? Yes. Their first thought is maybe money but usually they're deeper reasons. Right. I firmly believe that people go into trading because they have some pain, any kind of pain, because it's not an easy way to make money. Right. But it can provide you with a lot of things outside money as well. And for me, the pain was I hated my job so much.
- [79:15]
Scott Clary
Were you in finance before?
- [79:17]
Baron Skoropinski
No, I was actually, when I was in the corporate world, I was in the automotive business, like in marketing, sales. So complete 180 from complete 180. That's why I say it's a skill that can be learned by anybody. Right. It's like you start from the scratch. It's like learning, playing the piano in a way like you don't need. Yes. Again, this is also nice mythology that people think from them. Hey, do you have, you have a talent in trading? No, I don't have any. There's no such thing as talented trader because it's a skill. Right. It's not like you're an NBA player that. Yes. I mean, you need to have like a certain size to be. Because you're talented. But in trading, it's the skill that can be literally learned by anybody. So I went. And my pain was, and if people think about it, why they want to, like, if not a viewer, if the viewers are watching and they think about, I would like to go into trading. Think about really why you want to go into trading. And most probably you find deeper reasons than just money. For me, it was like I hated my job so much. I hated my 9 to 5 grind. I was waking up in the morning thinking, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I cannot do, I don't have, I don't feel any passion, I don't feel any purpose, nothing like that. Right. For me, it was just, my corporate job was just there to make money and to make a living and it.
- [80:19]
Scott Clary
Just was not fulfilling at all.
- [80:20]
Baron Skoropinski
Not at all. Not at all. Right. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. That's what I realized throughout the years. So, and, and I found the passion, like, real passion in trading. And I hope you realize that during the podcast we could, we could go for hours and, and, and, and so I found a real passion in trading and also into educating people and you know, just talk about trading because trading in general is just a lonely business. You sit in front of the screen and you don't have anybody to share your, your passion with. So it's a problem. Right. By itself. But that's why you have, that's an.
- [80:53]
Scott Clary
That'S a entrepreneurship problem too. In general. Usually when you're building anything, it is just very lonely, very lonely when you put yourself out there, when you do something that no one's ever done before, when it is very lonely.
- [81:02]
Baron Skoropinski
And that's why I love podcasts so much because you can like really let out everything, right? There's no filter. You can just talk about trading. That's why I love it so much. So yeah, so from that was my reason. So that's why I was like, hey, again, we always touch on that swing trading perspective set and swing trading slash set and forget and get a live trading approach. Because that's what swing trading necessarily should provide. That you have a live. That you don't. That you don't replace one 9 to 5 job with another 9 to 5 job. Again, this can happen. So once you're like a proficient in that business, once you like really skilled, then you have that kind of. Then you can have that life. But you first have to get to that point. I always want to stress that you don't have that from day one. Right. It's impossible because you have to. Again, I want to really like emphasize in that and make people aware that you have to. There's a learning curve. People have to get started. It takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of time as well to maybe to. To. To also it takes sometimes sacrifice. Right. Because you're learning a new skill. So people who are really busy, if you're the single mom who have two kids and a full time job, you can still learn how to trade. But most probably you have to sacrifice on something. Back in the days when I started to learn, I had the corporate job and stuff. I sacrificed gym. I love to go to the gym and do like sports. Like I'm a sport. I loved doing my sports and stuff. So I sacrificed the gym a little bit. I sacrificed also my social life and I was really like focusing on learning the skill, how to trade. So at this time I had really like my job, my corporate job and learning how to trade. So sacrifice. And I have to say so there's always when you learn something new, if you start a business, whatever it is, if you go into entrepreneurship, there's sacrifice involved as well. Otherwise it doesn't work.
- [82:44]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I'm curious because we've kind of already established that the reason why a lot of people screw up in trading is because of either lack of skill or making poor decisions. Poor decision making because you're a human.
- [82:56]
Baron Skoropinski
Poor decisions because your lack of skill. And sometimes, and this is actually important to stress people, usually they stress that they blame also their psychology. But the psychology is they have quote unquote bad psychology because they're not skilled, not the other way around. Once you are skilled, you kind of eliminate a lot, a lot of the psychology factors. It's never the other way around. It's super important. People don't understand that because again, people say ah, because of my emotions, because I was greedy, because of this and that. They blame their emotions because they lost money. Yeah, no, you lost money because you're just not skilled. Because if you were skilled, emotional factors would not play a big role.
- [83:49]
Scott Clary
Were there any things that outside of like you hated your job, but what made you use trading as the way to get to freedom, fulfillment, money, a life that you actually enjoyed?
- [84:02]
Baron Skoropinski
I think the passion that I developed through trading, that was, I. It was crazy.
- [84:08]
Scott Clary
Passion follows skill. That's very important. You have to develop the skill and you'll find passion for it.
- [84:12]
Baron Skoropinski
Yes, yes, yes. You first you're curious.
- [84:16]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [84:16]
Baron Skoropinski
First you're curious about the topic something, right? And then you get into it. And for me, trading, because I have a just a normal, like most people, normal university, business, university degree. You know, I went through school my whole my life until I was like my mid-20s. Like I went through the whole school jabang program, traditional tradition, very traditionally. And you know, you learn so much in school that you can, you can never really apply in real life very much. It's like so many theory models over and over again that you, that you realize at some point in time, okay, I learned that, so how do I apply that to make money? Right? It's like, like you learn something that you want to apply to make money once. Then you know, I went into trading and I realized like I really remember that when I went into trading and I realized for the first time in my life I learning a skill and immediately this skill I can apply to make actual money in that same moment, in a way, quote, unquote, it was mind boggling. It was like crazy to me that I learn a skill that I can apply to make money immediately very, very and relatively quickly in the sense of I can see that this might work out. You know, that's what I mean. Like of course it's fail and error and it takes like practice and all this kind of stuff. But you're literally learning the skill that you can apply immediately in the markets and potentially see like an outcome. Whereas everything you learn in school it's like theory or it is theory.
- [85:51]
Scott Clary
Listen, I went to school for, I was supposed to be a lawyer at one point in my life and then I went to school for pre law and I remember learning history and theory and basically nothing that I use right now at all. Like basically nothing.
- [86:05]
Baron Skoropinski
We're sitting here having a podcast, right?
- [86:07]
Scott Clary
How has your relationship with money changed since you are now a very successful trader and how has it had to have changed? You meant. You touched on this briefly, but explain how it's changed for you and what. And just one more time. I think it's very important for people to. I loved that whole idea of your relationship with money and how that ties into who you are as a trader and it has to be positioned in the proper sequence.
- [86:31]
Baron Skoropinski
I have to say, money again was never the primary reason why I went into trading. I always had like, because, you know, I had a job in Dubai, tax free income, I had good money working for like some automotive brands, making really good income money. I never, when I went into trading, literally, yes, of obviously money was like, okay, I want to make money with trading. But it was never the primary reason why I went into trading. So I had really liked the deeper reasons. Like I hated my job and stuff like that. I wanted to have like more purpose, fulfillment in life. I wanted to wake up excited. Like I want to have had these, these intrinsic feelings, values that I. Okay, I want to accomplish this in life. And I thought, okay, money will just follow them just by default in a way, you know. So when it comes to trading in particular though, obviously you realize once you start trading and you have money in the financial market on a daily base in a way, right, that you have to get used to slowly get used to bigger numbers in the market, that your risk tolerance has to increase slowly. It's like if you have never, like for me in the very, very beginning, if you had never a thousand dollars risk in the markets and all of a sudden you have a thousand dollars risk in the market, this does somebody something, this does something to you, right? You make then because you're also not yet fully skilled, you make poor decisions based on the flashy number that you see on the screen. That's just again, you're human. It's human psychology. There's no way around it, right? Some people. And then it's just, it's just about the, the number on the screen, the flashy number that varies from person to person, right? How risk averse are you, right? It's a thousand dollars for you, like pocket money or it's like a Thousand dollars, like your monthly income. Right. So everybody has to kind of determine, define their risk tolerance in the beginning themselves and then slowly increase it based on how comfortable you feel based on these numbers. I call that milestone planning in trading that you increase your risk tolerance slowly, the more comfortable. And you have to get more comfortable to these big numbers. Now I'm looking back and laughing about these numbers, right? But, but that's how you slowly increase your risk tolerance. I think this is how my relationship to money changed. The more experience I have that the more I get detached from these numbers and just follow the strategy. But in the beginning, you're just following the green and red.
- [89:08]
Scott Clary
You know, money and 50,000 is a lot scarier, even though the patterns still apply. But for most people, $50,000 in a brokerage account or in a trading account is much scarier than a thousand dollars and it's much less scary than a million dollars. But again, if you have the right skills, then a million should follow the same pattern as 50,000. Should follow the same pattern as 1,000.
- [89:30]
Baron Skoropinski
You get it? You get it. Exactly. That's, that's the point. Right? But then the question is, are you capable, mentally, emotionally, to manage a million versus $50,000? If you have never managed $50,000, then you're also not. Then you should never manage a million dollars. Right? And that's why you have to slowly climb that ladder. And that's what I call milestone planning. You have to. If this. Milestone, milestones. And if you, like, feel comfortable with $50,000 or like that's the money in the account. But let's assume if you're comfortable risking $1,000 per trade, well, then you move up the lever. And if you're like saying, now you're trading $2,000 risk per trade, and if you feel like you're making poor decisions and you see maybe this based on the data, on the results, that because your execution is exactly the same, like it's supposed to be exactly the same, then in the previous milestone, but now you see, like you're making poor decisions because maybe of the amount. The amount. Exactly. Then you have to go back a milestone until you're comfortable, until you're comfortable again and maybe do smaller jumps.
- [90:30]
Scott Clary
Okay? So to set expectations, if somebody is starting to trade, how much time should they give themselves before. And I know you're going to say you have to define what real money is, but I was gonna say before they make real money, meaning is it two years, is it five years, is it six years? And what is a Healthy return. So tell me what a healthy return, not investment advice, but just so that you can level set versus what they're seeing online in terms of how long they should be doing it and how much they should be making.
- [91:00]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's. With what would you, with what do you want me to start with? A healthy return? Because I need to elaborate a little bit on that, please.
- [91:08]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [91:09]
Baron Skoropinski
All right. So when it comes to trading, percentage return, I said in the very beginning of the podcast, 1 to 5% is realistic return. But since we're going a little bit deeper into the rabbit hole, I have to say percentage return is not the real approach when it comes to trading. So we measure our success and our profitability based on risk to reward proposition. Because at the end of the day, let me explain this quickly, just make a simple example. Yeah. Now whether I'm going to tell you I make 50% a year or 20% a year or 10% a year, you would expect, okay, the person who makes more return is just by default a better trader. It's not necessarily true because he might have over leveraged himself. He might have taken too much risk. And we don't know this based on just percentage return. So saying that if a trader tells me or brags, I made 50% return this year, it's already a red flag because it doesn't mean anything. He could have taken 70% risk per trade. So it's like a bad risk to reward proposition. So maybe it was just luck that he all that he made like the 50%.
- [92:26]
Scott Clary
And again, the game is to stay.
- [92:27]
Baron Skoropinski
In the game exactly long. Forever. Forever. Forever. Exactly. Because you want to trade for the rest of your life. Life. So that's why as a trader, as a professional trader, you measure your performance not based on percentage. You can do this then at the end, but it's more like based on risk to reward proposition. Meaning for every dollar you risk, you try to make $2. So it's mean, it means 1R, 1 risk versus 2 reward, 2R's asset. So and a healthy monthly return is 2 rewards, 2 hours per month on average, meaning over a whole year, 2 times 12 months. So 20 to 24 hours return per year is a realistic goal to achieve 20 to 24 hours per year on average, 2 hours per month. So it's meaning if today and this is then you have then also fixed dollar risk, it's called a fixed dollar risk approach where your monetary risk per trade is always the same. Meaning let's assume over a whole year, I Risk, we make a very simple example. $1,000, all right? Per trade. So meaning I risk now today, $1,000. And I have a return of two hours per month on average as my goal. So I make $2,000 per month based on a thousand dollars risk per trade.
- [94:00]
Scott Clary
That's a great ratio. That can be sustained forever.
- [94:04]
Baron Skoropinski
100%. And that's not rocket science. I'm not. It is really one to two, two hours per month on average is very reasonable and something that everybody at some point in time, if they are skilled, can achieve over very long period of time. Obviously you have like, like in any other business you have like kind of break even month. You have more like negative month. Then you have like a really good month that is like you have overachieved your targets. You have four or five hours. But again, 20 to 24 hours per year on average is very reasonable. So if your risk tolerance, if your risk level right now is $1,000 per trade, you can expect at the end of the year 20 to $24,000 per annum.
- [94:51]
Scott Clary
And if people aren't even speaking like that, then they're just telling you numbers that could have been lucky, could have been fake. Could have been, yeah.
- [94:59]
Baron Skoropinski
Bad risk management. Otherwise these numbers don't tell you anything. Exactly. And most people do that. So it's like for professionals it's like already very red flag. If somebody says I made X X percentage amount per year on the leveraged markets, it's like, what does this even mean now? This doesn't tell me anything really. Whether you're good or bad, how much risk per trade you took, like it doesn't tell me anything. That's why I want to. When somebody asks this question, I always have to elaborate a little bit more. It's not necessarily measured on, on percentage performance because it really doesn't mean anything. It's more like on risk to reward proposition.
- [95:31]
Scott Clary
Again, it's switching the mindset from short term to long term.
- [95:33]
Baron Skoropinski
Exactly.
- [95:34]
Scott Clary
And for somebody who puts in reasonable effort three, four, five years before, they should think about this as something that's their actual work.
- [95:44]
Baron Skoropinski
No, I think so. Again, it would be not professionally for me to put like a real number behind it. Again, that's a red flag. When people say you can learn trading in X amount of time.
- [95:57]
Scott Clary
I feel like when people say you can learn trading in X amount of time, they are not saying five years, they're usually saying three months. That's it.
- [96:05]
Baron Skoropinski
Learn my strategy in seven days and become a profitable professional trader. Right. That's like usually like take my weekend course, my weekend seminar and become a trader. That's the problem. Right. Obviously it's super unrealistic and then we have to differentiate. It's very, it's, it's. Trading is a very individual journey. Are you again the single mom with two kids and a full time job and can barely, you know, spare some time for trading or are you the board student who has all the time in the world and can really like study 10 hours a day?
- [96:36]
Scott Clary
But when you start to hit those ratios, when you have predictable ratios, that's when you can start to think this could be something that's full time.
- [96:43]
Baron Skoropinski
Yes, exactly.
- [96:44]
Scott Clary
Even if you don't have prop money. Realistically, if you have those ratios and you have the skill set and you start to scale.
- [96:51]
Baron Skoropinski
But that just takes much longer. Yeah. And if you, if you lack in capital, it just takes much longer.
- [96:56]
Scott Clary
No, I mean if you hit those ratios before you actually get prop money, then that means that, that you probably would pass a test to allow you to.
- [97:02]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, 100. Yeah, of course. Then it should not be difficult to pass these tests. Exactly.
- [97:07]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [97:08]
Baron Skoropinski
That's how I experienced it. Right. For me it was like, okay, wow. First I was like, wow, their tests let me do it and was like, wow, that's actually, was quite easy. Right.
- [97:16]
Scott Clary
It's actually such a beautiful idea that if you can hit these ratios with 500 bucks or a thousand bucks, then in theory you are set for the rest of your life.
- [97:29]
Baron Skoropinski
In theory, yes. 100% in theory, yes.
- [97:31]
Scott Clary
That's a beautiful idea. Like yes, I'm sure you have to manage yourself, your emotions, but it's, you know, if I make $500 as an entrepreneur, there's no guarantee I can make $5 million as an entrepreneur. There's scaling issues, there's cost of goods sold, there's a hiring that has to happen.
- [97:50]
Baron Skoropinski
So many other, there's so many other variables involved.
- [97:52]
Scott Clary
So many other variables.
- [97:53]
Baron Skoropinski
Trading, you don't have these variables. That's why it's the most beautiful side hustle in the world. That'. And yeah, so when it comes to time duration, again, I don't want to put a fixed time, but what we see based on our experience, my experience, that people who really put, let's say 12 months of really hardcore, I don't want to say hardcore dedication, but dedication. So they can study on a daily basis, an hour, two hours, then on a week. Because sometimes during the week they're busy but they can put more time, effort during the weekend. So I would say 12 months it's a reasonable time to then see the first, you know, consistency in your approach. But again, you have, you have. It's an individual journey. It really depends on how much time you can put into it. And it still takes time. And people have to go into that knowing it takes time. There's no overnight success. And it looks easy, yes, but it's definitely not easy. There's no such thing as easy money. Right?
- [98:53]
Scott Clary
There's no such thing as easy money. But. But my favorite idea is that in life you only have to figure it out once. You only have to figure out how to make money once. You only have to figure out how to build a business once. You only had to. You only have to figure out how to trade successfully. And once you figure it out, once your life is set, where can people reach out to you? Where can they follow you? YouTube socials.
- [99:17]
Baron Skoropinski
Yeah, usually I tell people, just go on my YouTube channel, Burn Skoropinski, my full name. They can watch my videos. I share a lot of free value. Again, like all these, I think stock market election cycle predictions, anticipation of where the market is heading, a lot of value for the people. I put them out all for free. And yeah, just you find me on my YouTube channel, Instagram and you can go from there.
- [99:43]
Scott Clary
Okay, we'll put that all in the show. Notes, last questions. Now you have a whole bunch of like students, audience, whatever you want to call them that consume all your content. What would be the biggest thing that they screw up that stops them from being successful?
- [100:00]
Baron Skoropinski
They jump into the market too quickly. They jump into the market too quickly, they use their own money, they risk too much and all of a sudden it backfires and they lose it. Right? They think they know it, but they don't know. All the saying, you don't know what you don't know that is really exist, especially when it comes to trading. Don't have an ego as well because usually men. So the majority of the content that consumes, the people that consumes my content are because of trading are male. Right. Usually men, they have a big ego. They know everything better. We know everything better. Right. Female traders are the better traders actually because they are like very like they first want to learn everything properly to the book, like to the point, and then they execute. But man, they execute first and then they learn because they realized maybe I.
- [100:53]
Scott Clary
Should have to learn eventually. Anyways. That's funny.
- [100:56]
Baron Skoropinski
So it's funny. No, really, that's my experience. But so yeah, don't have an ego in trading. You cannot when it comes to the financial market. Everybody has like preconceived thoughts about the market, right. Because we are exposed to the market on a daily basis. Don't have an ego. Learn and learn first before you get into the market. And this is usually the why people then they have bad experience because they lose money quickly and they lose a lot of money and then they're hesitant to go back. But they just made these mistakes in the beginning.
- [101:24]
Scott Clary
If you were going to go back and tell your 20 year old self one piece of advice. After everything you've learned in your life.
- [101:30]
Baron Skoropinski
Just do everything the way you. I'm quite nobody's, I think fully happy with their life, right? Everything. There's always space for improvement and there's always things we want to achieve achieve and so on and so forth. But I think if you have told my 20 year old, me who was kind of lost, really never knew what like I, I wanted to be in life and what I can accomplish if you have. If you had told me that I would be here at this place right now, I would have signed the paper and said yeah, take me there, you know, so I, that's why I would say I would tell my 20 year old that made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot of lessons. Do these mistakes, learn these lessons because they make you the person that you are today. And I'm quite, with all the flaws that I have, it is what it is. I'm quite satisfied where I am today.