I've been watching the Youtube channel "Garage Day Trader" by Justin Oles. I like that Oles is sensible and doesn't pressure viewers to take big risks. It's a good channel for home traders who want to play American stocks and don't have large bills.

Welcome Oles. I guess it's unusual that a guy from Poland writes to you and says, "Hey, nice YouTube channel, I watch often!" Why did you create your channel? What's the project's mission?

I was certainly a little surprised, though most of my support seems to come from overseas. I assume this is because the trading platform I use is a version of Colmex, but that's just a theory and I don't know for sure.

When I first started the channel, there was really only one goal or reason in mind. I knew that if even a few other people were watching me trade, it would in theory make me trade in a more disciplined way, as I wouldn't want to show losing trades to the world. Since I got some decent support early on, the channel's evolved a lot. I find the main focus of my channel now is helping everyday people learn the basics of trading and showing that anyone can do it if you work hard enough. That's one of the reasons I also went with the name "Garage Day Trader." It's nothing fancy, and yes, I work in my garage. I've been doing my channel for about 6 months now. It's grown much larger than I ever expected. I now have numerous other plans and dreams related to it, the biggest dream being to one day run my own website/live trading room.

I'm a day trader too. I watch your videos for several reasons - you play rationally small sizes (500-1000 shares), choose safe companies, reject pump and dump schemes. These are important factors for "home traders" with smaller accounts. What's your tolerance for risk?

I try to keep my risk to no more than $500 per trade, but that doesn't always happen, as I'm sure you've seen. When I'm trading my best, I'm able to reduce my size once I realize a trade isn't going my way. I definitely stay away from pump and dump stocks, which mostly occur with penny stocks. Penny stocks seem to be the favorite thing for people to trade, especially in the U.S., because you don't need as much capital, but for me they are way too risky and hard to read.

The trading methods you show in your videos aren't too complicated. Could you share what you base your trading strategy on? Chart, volume, and tape reading?

The methods I use are simple in concept, but as with everything in trading, applying it to an actual trade is a different story. The main trade I like to take is what I call a market open gap down reversal. This is when a stock over $10 is gapping down in the pre-market with good volume. Then, once trading opens up, I look for the stock to pull back up before finding a reversal point to short it on its way back down. I use the charts, volume, tape, and especially level 2 extensively in my trading.

How long have you been trading? How did you find yourself in this market? Is trading your full time job?

I've been day trading for almost a year now, but have been trading in the stock market for about 3 to 4 years total. I've always been interested in the stock market and finally decided a few years ago to give it a shot. I had some early success doing long-term trades, which I know now was complete luck. But that gave me the desire to continue to learn more, which eventually turned into day trading. Trading is not my full time job. I do have a full-time job, but I work a lot of nights and evenings, which allows me to be able to trade the majority of mornings. My company asked that I keep my trading separate, so all I normally say is that I have a degree in information systems development and let people guess from there.

What is your profit to risk ratio and what turnover do you generate per month?

I am always looking for a 1:1 ratio in my trades. I know there are tons of books, experts, and other sources out there that say you should have at least 2:1, but I found that my success rate percentage-wise fluctuates between 68 and 75%. So as long as I maintain that 1:1, it works well for me. I would hesitate to claim any monthly profit figure. I think being not even in a year yet, and really only in this style for about 8 months, is still too early. I have had some success for sure, but I don't think at least in my mind that I am 100% proven yet.

Why do you think novice traders fail?

I think there are two main reasons why new traders fail. The biggest one would be that they see people online making tons of money, whether it's real or fake, and they say, "That looks easy, I can do that." Then they start their first account with way too much value using way too big a size. I was actually guilty of this too when I started my first account, but luckily didn't go so big that I couldn't continue. The second reason would be the penny stock phenomenon. Sure, there are people who make money trading penny stocks, but I would bet that the majority of people who try trading penny stocks fail.

In your country I found a lot of day trading channels. Do you find it's popular in the U.S.? If so, can you explain why YouTube traders are popular with American viewers?

There are quite a few different channels out there. I certainly have my own opinions on which ones are good and which ones aren't. I think traders are always looking for every avenue possible to make money for their families, as am I. If you get large enough on YouTube, you can make a small amount of additional income. I think the second part is that everyone is trying to be the next big trading website. I would say there are several channels out there who project being profitable all the time, but never actually show themselves taking the trades, they only talk about what they did afterwards. I think that's one of the reasons I've had some success thus far in my channel, is that I show all my trades as I take them.

I see that you use the funded trader services from Tradenet. Do you think that Meir Barak is a good example of a trader?

Meir, and more specifically his book, is certainly the main influence from which I adopted my current trading style. He does use large size, but I think he's been trading for 15 years or something like that. I honestly think that any trader who can be consistently profitable is a good example of a trader. I tell people on my channel all the time that there is no one right or wrong way to trade. It's what makes most sense and, most importantly, what works for you. I trade similarly to Meir, but have taken what I've learned from his book and adapted it to my own style and personality.

On what shares have you recently earned the most money? On which one you have lost?

I seem to do the best on stocks priced between $50 - $150 dollars. Anything below that normally does not move enough for me to make any real gains on, and stocks above that price tend to move so much that I have taken big losses in the past. The main area of my trading I'm currently working on trying to get better at is avoiding the big losing days, as one day like that can knock out an entire month of profits.

Can you recommend other good YouTube channels about trading?

Hmm, that's a tough question. I think the best thing to do is just browse around and watch a lot of different people trade in a lot of different styles, even if you don't agree with or understand or like their style of trading. If you have an idea of what others are doing in the stock market I think it will help your trading.

You live in California, Maryland. I've never been in the United States. How's life in a small town near Washington D.C.? What's interesting in the area?

I actually used to live in California, Maryland, but don't anymore. I'm nearby in Maryland, just not in that town. I have lived in Maryland for my entire life, the only exception being when I went away to college. Washington D.C. certainly has many different interesting things to see, from museums and sporting events to parks and cherry blossoms. I actually think I don't appreciate it enough, because there are many people in the U.S. who have never been to Washington D.C., whereas I can drive there anytime I want.

Thank you for your time. Would you like to add something for the readers of Passport to Wall Street?

Just a thank you to everyone who supports my channel. I try to keep it a very positive place and never dreamed I would have gotten this kind of support. I actually have a lot of Polish heritage; my English last name was apparently derived from the Polish last name of Olszewski. Unfortunately I don't know a whole lot more about it than that, I just thought that was a bit of a coincidence that you all wanted to talk to me.