What is going on interwebs? What is going on moon gang? I literally just wrapped up my interview with michael saylor, and that was phenomenal, and today we had our 100th episode of dumb money and i'm just feeling elated. This entire experience with ape nation has been incredible. This journey has been incredible and i feel like sometimes at least from a psychological perspective. It's it's beneficial to take a step back and just kind of enjoy what the journey has been.

So in this particular video. I do want to explain what the community means for me and why i'm particularly excited about the future of ape nation community and, at the end, just to show a little bit of my gratitude for everything that's been going on and all that we've experienced together. I will be doing a giveaway of 10 100 gift cards, so if you hey just a little secret, if you want to fast forward - and just do that - i'm not going to tattletail on you, but with all that being said, let's hop right into it. So for those of you who don't know me hi, my name is matt and i'm not a financial advisor, i'm not a lawyer, i'm just a guy who has an affinity for duck shirts and i really really like the markets.

Stocks options, futures crypto, all of it. I think for me, maybe just the way my brain is wired, i'm a big fan of solving puzzles and i think that these markets are one of the coolest puzzles to solve, and if you do it right, it might make you super wealthy. I've been involved in the markets for pretty much an entire decade now and at first it was pretty rough, if i'm being honest - and maybe a lot of you can resonate with this when i first started trading time after time, i just kept blowing up my account And i think for me my biggest issue was my own personal discipline or, i should say my lack of discipline. If i'm being completely honest uh, i would always get into a trade, and i had a trading plan.

I was like, oh i'm gon na. Do this like if this happens, then i'll do this, but it was one of those things that, in the heat of the moment, i always somehow fumbled the situation broke my own rules and sometimes i got lucky and i made some money, but enough of the times It went south on me and i blew up an account and then i would do it again without really, i guess improving my own skill set and then i would do it again and blow up and blow up, and it was just this awful cycle and fortunately, For me, one turn took another in life and i ended up being a coder and i ended up thinking hey. I wonder if i could apply this just because it's very regimented when it comes to the world of coding, it's just basically a bunch of. If then statements and it doesn't have the emotions that i think a lot of people when they end up trading, so for me that was my first real success.

In fact, i ended up coding some algorithms that i was like. Oh, i like this plan and i did end up applying it to the futures market, but it was a very specific trading plan and there wasn't much room for my emotions to get in the way and mess up the trade, and i thought this was a unique Way to approach the market, because i think people like to overstate the difficulty that it required to code up an algorithm, so i i always looked up to certain people, some of the finance youtuber ogs, i'm talking, graham stefan andre me kevin jeremy from financial education. All these people - i really did look up to - i thought: hey, that's an awesome job. It seemed like they were talking about finance, something they were truly passionate about and then they kind of bonded it with social media, and i just thought that was so cool but, alas, life gets in the way and you're like hey, that's cool.

I wish i could do it, but i just never had the time i i in at the start of 2020, i switched up my jobs and i moved to new york and i went from one coding job to another coding, job and being in new york. At first i was just really busy and then february march hit and if you don't know about 2020 uh, the world went belly up and it went belly up pretty, notably within new york city. So all of a sudden i found myself pretty much locked in and i had a lot of free time and at first that's cool, i don't know, maybe just like you. I think i like watched every single thing that could possibly be consumed on netflix hulu, amazon.

Prime and slowly but surely uh there was that sense of solitude that sense of loneliness and it was tough. I mean i was in the fortunate position that i i went through that experience with my girlfriend, and at least that was someone that i could still have like, seemingly somewhat of a normal life with, but still when, when you're cut off from the world, like that, It's tough and then i realized hang on. Maybe i could use this opportunity. I just had so much pent-up energy.

I had to do something and i was like okay. This is maybe the opportunity to teach a little bit about what i know about trading, especially as it relates to algorithmic trading. So right now, they're still up there uh. You can look at some of my oldest videos on this channel and they're all relating to the futures market, algorithmic trading, and if you watch them, please here's your little word of caution.

They're horrendously cringe. I keep them up there, just because i like to laugh at them and it's still good education, but the presentation style. You can very much tell that. For me, this is a learned skill and i'm still learning it.

I am, by definition an introvert. I am by no means taught in public speaking. I i founded a big thing that i had to overcome in my own life. I started that in march of 2020 because i had that month where everything was shut down, didn't know what to do started the channel and slowly but surely i started getting going with it fast forward till the end of the year, like i'm talking about now.

Just a year ago - and i think this is maybe one of the reasons that i'm really reminiscing to think about - where my youtube channel was a year ago, where i was at just as a person a year ago and as i was doing it, it's kind of Weird, when you put yourself out on social media, it's interesting, because if you think about it psychologically you're putting yourself out there in the sense that your failure is very noticeable. If you do fail, it's just hey they've been doing it. Are they getting numbers? And it's one of those things that i think psychologically a lot of people are comfortable with the aspect of. If you keep your definition of success and fail kind of vague, you don't ever feel that pressure, because you're, like oh i'm, somewhere kind of in the fog but with social media.

It changes it because, like i for months, i was just seeing pretty much. My numbers go absolutely nowhere and, as i just was speaking about like i, i wasn't that good, like i honestly still don't even think, i'm that good on camera, it's it's a big skill set for me to personally continue to hone and a year ago this time, I've shared this a little bit, but i haven't really gone into it. When i was filming, i was using my girlfriend's camera and the camera that she has. It can only record for 10 minutes and when i was doing these takes like and you just have to restart it so 10 minutes, do you film? When you can, then you restart film 10 minutes go.

I i had an awful time speaking a horrendous time. Speaking to the point that i remember one time, i was sitting in this very room and i was turning around 180 degrees, but i was in this room right here and it got to the point that i noticed in september. Maybe half of october. Whenever i sat in front of the camera just like this, and i was looking at it, i felt my heart start to beat like just my blood pressure started to rise.

My heart rate started to rise. I felt uncomfortable a couple weeks of that and it i noticed that it was tough for me to get going like i couldn't i'm like. I would just think about the words too much and i wouldn't actually articulate anything and at one point in october i sat there and i looked at it. I started the timer for 10 minutes and i was just trying to do the intro of the video probably related to like tesla apple, something like that, and i did i just i didn't say anything.

I i just sat there and i kept thinking about it over and over again and then i was like oh wow, that that was like not good at all, so i restarted it and i sat through another 10 minute segment at this point 20 minutes - and i Was like i just just talked to say something i i could not get a word out god's, honest truth. I started it for a third time about halfway through now is 25 minutes of me. Apparently developing selective mutism uh, like i just felt my brain breaking. It was, it was crazy, and at that point i just screamed a profanity at the top of my lungs.

My neighbor was concerned, they're like what's going on. No one knew what was going on and that's how it was for a bit, and i i don't know like the medical definition of a mental breakdown or anything like that. But in my own mind, if it wasn't that it was as pretty much as close as you get, i really really struggled mentally because i was at that point where i felt like i was putting myself out there and it's tough in life to truly accept failure. Be like you tried something to the best of your ability, and it did not work out for me and i think, for a lot of people.

That could be a pretty tough pill to swallow. Be like to come to the realization that they're, like wow. Your best was not good enough. It's easy the other times when you're, just like i barely tried.

So who cares if i failed but like i was in it from marshall october, especially as we got to like the latter half of the year. It's all i cared about like. I was obsessed with it and i was not getting success and it was it like. My mental was my mental state was in.

It was in a horrific, horrific spot, and then i don't know why. I think about this a lot. I do not know why i continued, maybe it was because of the state of the world, and there was really not much going on um. I honestly think one of my true only skill sets in this life is some would call it discipline.

Some would call it absurdly stubborn. I don't know what it is. It's probably a gray line um, but one of those i i just i i kept going and it's not like it got better check those videos out. If you look at the videos from 2020, you're gon na be like what's going on and then, as i got going to the end of the year um, i i have a a group of friends that they're they're the kind of group that they're gon na say.

What's on their mind, they don't really worry about being around the bush at all like they just say it. Sometimes people would call it like a little abrasive, but it's just the the group of people that i've - i guess most resonated with throughout my life and a couple of those friends told me matt. This just sounds awful. It sounds uh, not just scripted but robotic.

You seem uncomfortable. What are you doing? They just straight up, told me that these videos suck - and i think that's actually some of the best advice i ever got, and maybe some of you can like take that of like hang on, like sometimes a friend telling you something negative doesn't mean that they're, not A friend, in fact, it might actually mean they're, a better friend, because they're going to tell you the truth to your face and, honestly, that's a pillar that i've carried forward on my own youtube experience is like sometimes the truth is painful, but it's always always necessary And that's how my group of friends were and they came up with the suggestion of hey matt. Just you got to work on your speaking. Is there something you can think about and they're like what about this live streaming thing, so i decided that december 31st.

It was new year's eve. I was like i'm gon na. Do my first live stream, didn't know, and i remember calling with my friends like right before it. I was like i don't know like.

I hope i could get through like 15 minutes. Like folks. You don't understand for me to previously record a four or five minute video that recording took me about five-ish hours. It was a while - and i like it, got to the point where sometimes i had to speak in one sentence and edit all those individual sentences together.

So, for me it was basically in like existential crisis. I was like wait. I have to go straight for 15.. This is crazy and i did that first live stream and i went for like an hour and a half i just kept talking and talking.

I was like what is this: it felt crazy and then fast forward a little bit more and i just decided to do it. Every week. Every sunday i was like i'm just going to do a market recap and talk about like things that were going on in the upcoming week, and this entire time as i was making my tesla apple amazon, neo, workhorse videos the whole time. I'm always i've always been a big fan as soon as i found out about it in college of wall street bets on their reddit page.

So i found out about them in summer back when i was in new york of at that point, deep, f in value, and i i got to the point. I think it was september when he started posting more so like every two weeks every week and to december as i started live streaming, that's where we were getting like a lot of the common updates, and at that point i i just wanted to be a part Of the community part of the fun i bought some gamestop fast forward to the end of january when it actually started moving to a considerable amount. I remember one day i was at work and i was too excited to script. I couldn't research, i all.

I could do was watch gamestop on my screen. I was glued to it. I was like there's no way. This was wednesday january 27th.

Honestly, probably the day that my life changed, i sat there. I couldn't do a video. I talked to my girlfriend. I was like what should i do.

I'm too excited game stops running she's like what do you mean game stops right? I was like don't worry about that. I'm too excited what should i do and she's like. Oh, i just live streaming. I was like okay.

I guess i could because actually apple and tesla had their earnings announcement that day on wednesday, so i'm streaming it there's probably about 100 viewers and i'm streaming tim cook comes on i'm breaking down the earnings announcement. Then there was a bit of a pause and we're waiting for elon to come on to do the tesla earnings announcement. In that time, some random person out there commented wall street bets, read it taken down. I was like whoa, that's crazy, uh and i was like oh there's a couple people talking about it, so i switched the title of my stream and that singular just random event is honestly what changed everything for me from right.

There i went from about a hundred viewers to a thousand and the emotional response i had to that. I was beyond cloud nine i it was, it was pure elation. I was like i i did it, i'm a youtuber, it took me almost a year, but i i did something i got views so the next day i was like, let's try it again and that that was pretty much like what the the start of chapter. Two of the insanity, so through that experience i got to stream a bunch of game stop and there was obviously at that point.

That's when the amc community started - and it was just pure insanity for the start of february and then when obviously the the brokerage who should not be named stopped the buying, we saw a sell-off, and that was in flux and i was like well what do i Do like i, i saw as the craziness was happening in gamestop. I was about mid february and i was ner. I was like i love this, but how can i keep streaming? The markets like i have a job like. I have to pay my bills and i some of the times in life.

You look back and you realize that you took a leap of faith that just did not matter like you. Don't know why, like you just you're like like what's going on, why did i do that and there's no rhyme or reason to it, just something in your gut and whatever it is, but, like i said, the stars aligned. I took that leap of faith. I was like, let's just see if this can work out and unfortunately at first the stocks really weren't moving, but i did start to slowly notice.

An entire another community was slowly but surely getting built and that's all the amc apes. So at this point we have gamestop, we have amc, two communities, growing, vibrant and it was awesome and through there it was no longer just watching a stock squeeze all of a sudden we're diving into market structure. We're talking about all this craziness we're going into what market makers do we're talking about dark pools, we're talking about deep in the money out of the money options and how they can cover up fdds. It just got crazy and i loved it all of a sudden.

We saw all these different retail people being so excited. It was a cultural wildfire and, i said, sit here after my 100th dumb money episode and i think about it, and i think we all have that one little story of just like something crazy aligned and for whatever reason we all ended up in this truly beautiful Amazing community, i know we all have our backstory and i'm i'm happy. I have this opportunity to share mine, but i feel like we all have that. That's like the one thing in common is something was going in our life.

That was not the best and, i think, there's an entire gambit of like obviously that severity. But it was a group of people who, i think at the most core tenant just wanted a better life, and i think that's like one of the main pillars that really keeps us all together. It's just like: hey we're fighting to improve our life, our loved ones lives, our families lives, and i i think with that that that aspect of hope of just trying to be a little bit better of just that sense that the life surrounding you right now. You know it deep in your gut that it's just not what you want and you're you're willing to fight for more, and it's because of that that i feel, absurdly stupidly fortunate to be on this side of the camera, making this video right now for you to Be watching it, i there's not going to be words that i could possibly articulate that would really convey, like, i guess, the the the feeling i have for this community and how much it actually truly means to me and just know, if you're watching this right now, How much i truly truly appreciate you and the energy and the enthusiasm you bring to this community, because it's truly one of those situations where the sum is greater than all the individual parts exponentially greater and it's because exactly exactly that, then i'm so absurdly excited about The future of this community - it's been about 10 min 10 months, strong um, and with that look at what's happened in the 10 months.

Look at the things that have changed like the the collective knowledge that this community has. I swear. I do not think for a second that any of these nscc ioc dtcc any of those rules would have been passed with the same efficiency if it wasn't for this community and we're millions strong and that's what we've done in 10 months. Imagine this extrapolate it forward and think about the things that we can actually shine a light on the transparency we could fight for the fairness that we could say: hey.

We demand this now the list goes on and on and on, but i just think we're truly on the right side of history and i think that's why we're growing exponentially, because it's a group of people who are fighting for the right thing, they're trying to level The playing field for everyone for future generations and that's just a a deeply human story - that's going to resonate with even more people as we continue to spread the word of what we're actually fighting for. So for me, i'm just taking the bet on the community because to me it's one of the most obvious bets that i could possibly take right now. So overall, i just want to wrap up the sappy part of it with just a thank you, i'm so happy to be able to do things like these special interviews. 100 episodes of dumb money man.

I just can't even imagine where we're gon na be in one years five years ten years i just cannot imagine it at all and, like i said in the intro, just a little token of my gratitude, i thought it'd be fun to do a giveaway, so i Will be giving away 10 100 amc gift cards, it's very simple for you to get entered very, very simple: all you have to do is be a subscriber of this channel, be a subscriber of the backup channel coors, light i'll, make sure to link it below and In a comment, all you have to do is comment your twitter handle, so i know who to dm i'm going to randomly pick 10 of you. I just need your twitter dm so like i can actually dm you. I just need your twitter handle so throw that in a comment make sure you subscribe to both that's all you have to do to enter and at the end of the weekend start of next week. I will announce it all do out a tweet i'll.

Do it on live stream, it'll be very, very public, but it's just a small token of gratitude. Just a little thing i can do to say. Thank you, but trust me. It vastly underestimates how thankful i truly am for you right there watching.

Thank you so much and i'll catch you in the next video and, as always, remember from me and share best of luck in the markets. You.