Steve McDonald: Hi, everybody, I’m Steve McDonald. This is your Market Wake-Up Call. The focus this week is how to turn the average Joe into a market wizard. In case you’re wondering, that’s a trader who actually makes money. We have two guys here who can show you exactly how to do that. They’ve developed a totally new approach to investing, and it’s the best idea I’ve seen in the 30 years I’ve been in this business.

Now, before we get to the particulars of this new program, let me explain why what our guests are going to tell you today is so vital. If you know anything about my work, you already know that one of my biggest concerns about the average investor is the huge losses they rack up trying to pick their own stocks.

Here’s just a quick list of some of the reasons the average investor has to get help with their money. They’re too emotional, they have little or no training, they don’t keep records of their trading activity, they lack specialization, they buy stocks with no volume, their positions are too large, they buy into the best-told and most recent story, and their timing is always 180 degrees out of sync with the market.

Years ago somebody asked me what we do at The Oxford Club, and I said we sell market wisdom. Every reason I just listed is the result of a lack of market wisdom, and it’s why the average investor consistently loses money. It’s tough enough to put money aside for retirement, but when you add the losses that most Joe Mainstreets accumulate, it’s impossible. What most people miss is that trading and investing is a profession, and it requires skills that are developed over years. The average Joe thinks they can sit at home, turn on their computer, pick a few companies and make $1 million in their underwear. I’ve got news for you: The shortest distance between your computer and the poorhouse is doing exactly that.

Okay, enough about the problem. Let’s bring on the solution. Our guests this week are Options Strategist Karim Rahemtulla and Bryan Bottarelli. Bryan cut his teeth in the business as a trader during the technology boom in the Apple trading pit and was mentored by some of the top floor traders in the business. He’s accumulated a track record that is second to none. He has completed 3,765 trades at an average of a 13% gain per trade, with 47,928% in total gains.

Karim Rahemtulla has more than 30 years of experience in option trading and international markets, and between April 2017 and November 2018, he racked up a perfect, no losses, undefeated options record of 37-0. Thirty-seven trades in a row were winners – no losers.

Now, I’ve known and worked with both of these guys off and on for almost 20 years. And I know with credentials like theirs and the success and trading numbers that I just threw at you, it sounds like a lot of puffed up advertising. But I absolutely assure you it is not. These two guys are for real. Welcome, guys!

Bryan Bottarelli: Steve, thanks.

Karim Rahemtulla: Hey, Steve. How are you?

Steve McDonald: I’m great, thank you. Let’s start general. What is The War Room, and how did you develop it? What’s it about?

Bryan Bottarelli: The War Room is a creation that I’ve had in my mind for a number of years. For 12 years I’ve been the editor of my own trading newsletter, and over those years, I’ve racked up a lot of those gains you described in your introduction. But what I’ve found lately is the way that information is passed and the way that stocks are moving these days is so incredible. The information flow is so fast that the old style of running a trading newsletter is almost becoming obsolete. I had to research the stocks, find out what I was going to recommend, then write that up, then post it and then send it out via email.

And then someone would have to receive that alert, then read it and then act on the trade. That whole process is too slow. By that time, the winning trade that I was researching has disappeared. The creation of The War Room, in my opinion, is so unique and so revolutionary because it’s this online collaborative platform where we can take every trader and all come together in a room and discuss stock movements, trades and speculation in real time. The instant it’s time to move into a trade, you know about it. I post it, and instantly it’s right on your computer at your fingertips.

Steve McDonald: So this is all real-time information?

Bryan Bottarelli: Yes, that’s why I’m so excited about this. When I was on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), people were making trades live in a pit in real time. When it was time to buy, you yelled out “buy.” When it was time to sell, you yelled out “sell.” The instant you said it, your trade was executed. For 12 years writing a newsletter, I couldn’t do that because I simply didn’t have the technology. But now with The War Room, we’ve created that ability to act instantly, and the results so far have been spectacular.

Steve McDonald: Let’s talk about your results.

Karim Rahemtulla: Bryan’s been on a tear. He’s had more winners in the last couple weeks in the beta version of The War Room than we can count on two hands. And these are quick ins and quick outs. One of the great things Bryan mentioned is that The War Room gives us the ability to communicate in real time, and we can’t gloss over that fact. This puts us way ahead of any other type of newsletter or trading service out there.

Steve McDonald: Now, walk me through this. I know this is a fabulous idea. I love it, but I want to make sure the people watching understand what this is. I’m a new trader, and I sign up for this. Walk me though what I do and what happens.

Bryan Bottarelli: Every day, the market opens at 9:30 a.m. ET. At 9 a.m., you can log on to The War Room, and I’ll lay out everything that I’m seeing for that day. So I could maybe say, for example, Restoration Hardware is hitting a support point, we may see a bounce.

Steve McDonald: Okay, let me stop you there for a second, Bryan. So I’m logged in, you’re writing this in real time. This is not posted a day ago, three days ago. This is happening and I’m seeing it as you’re writing it?

Bryan Bottarelli: Yes, instantly. So I will set up three to five potential trades that I will target. Then, when the market opens at 9:30, I will watch all of those indicators. And the second something hits, I will come out and say, “Hey, that Restoration Hardware trade did hit support. It did bounce, and it’s time to move in.” In fact, we did that just the other day on Restoration Hardware. We jumped in for $3, we jumped out for $4.50. It was a quick winner, and we do that day after day. So when it’s time to make a trade, you will know instantly from me or Karim both on the entry and on the exit.

And then the cool thing is you’re also collaborating and talking with other War Room participants. Other people will say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” or “Hey, I’m noticing this trade.” You have this community of elite traders who are all coming together to speculate and to put their minds together to find winning trades every single day.

Steve McDonald: That’s fantastic. I love the idea. Karim, you are the fundamental side of this. Bryan’s the technical. Karim, can you talk about how these two are going to interface live on The War Room?

Karim Rahemtulla: I think you have to look at Bryan as the really exciting guy and me as the semi-exciting guy in the background. So Bryan’s trades are always going to be much more exciting – in your face right now and get in, get out over the next few hours or days. Whereas my focus will be on those kinds of trades sometimes, but more on longer-term trades. Or I might do a LEAPS (Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities) trade or a put sell. So what we’re trying to do is give everybody everything. They’re in there for the action and the fast trading, and they are definitely going to get that from Bryan. His track record has proven that, without a doubt.

Bryan Bottarelli: The great thing for me is, for example, the first seven trades that I issued, six of them were winners. So the six winners were ranging from 20% to 30% up to 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% and even 100%. Six out of my first seven were winners. Now, I know you’re going to ask about the one loser, and that’s a totally fair question. I want to address that right off the bat.

It was a stop out, so we had a 30% loss. But this is what gets me so excited about this. An hour after that stop loss occurred, my partner Karim came in and issued another trade that made 100% overnight. If and when I have a losing trade, I have the ability to lean on a guy like Karim, who is going to come in and put another trade out that doubles. In the history of The War Room, you maybe have one hour where we were looking at a 30% stop out loss, but every other second from then on out has just been profits. That combination of what I’m doing – my real-time quick trades – with Karim’s analysis and his trades is just a great partnership that has me, personally, really excited.

Steve McDonald: Karim, give me a feel on the expectation sides. How many trades a day, how often and what kind of holding time are we talking about?

Karim Rahemtulla: Well, there are two different sets of expectations. Bryan trades much quicker. From Bryan, you’re looking at one to three trades a day. So far, he’s averaged more than that on the beta site. For myself, I’m looking at one to two trades a week. But there’s a big difference. My trades take a little bit longer to play out than his do. He uses technical analysis – he’s a pro at it. And so he’s got much more in terms of the opportunities for people who want to get in and get out, and ones who do it quickly, whereas I have to do things to set the trade up from a different perspective than he does. They’re complimentary types of services within the same service.

Steve McDonald: Let me throw this out to you. I have a schedule. I get up in the morning, I have breakfast, I want to play tennis, I want to play golf… Am I going to have to spend all day every day sitting in front of my computer to get these trades? What kind of time commitment are we talking about?

Bryan Bottarelli: That’s the thing that’s so great about The War Room, Steve. We absolutely don’t expect you to be sitting in front of your computer for eight hours a day trading. You can have your coffee and go play tennis, come back, check the market, log in to The War Room, pick up a trade or two in an hour, make your 20%, and then you’re off to go play another round of golf. The trades that are happening in The War Room are happening all day continuously, so whenever you have the time to hop in and hop out, The War Room is there to generate profits for you.

Steve McDonald: That’s fantastic.

Karim Rahemtulla: It’s not always going to be that you have to be in there. It’s not like if you’re not there for the whole day you’re going to miss something. We’ve got trades that are valid for the next two weeks. And other times we may have a stock trade in there that might be valid for two or three months. You’re always going to be able to participate, and that’s the way we set it up. We don’t want this to be a place where you can participate only if you’re there full time. We want you to enjoy your life as well, and enjoy the profits from The War Room while you’re doing it.

Bryan Bottarelli: The cool thing too is just this morning I issued a trade, a guy entered it and he was going to be out at a meeting the rest of the day. So he put a sell order in above his entry price. He went to his meeting, came back and it automatically filled for him. You don’t even have to be at your computer to lock in profits with the system. If you enter a trade, you put a sell limit order above your entry and just set it to “good ’til canceled,” and then you’re free to do whatever you want. And more likely than not, that trade will automatically sell. You could be sitting in a meeting knowing that you’re making money in The War Room.

Steve McDonald: The next question I have for you is about risk. Karim, you’ve never impressed me as a big risk-taker. But the way you’re talking about this trading, I think some people could read into this and think, “Wow. Maybe this isn’t for me.” What kind of risk levels are we talking about?

Karim Rahemtulla: Well, there are different types of risk. And you can be smart about risk. You can risk a little bit of money to make a lot of money, which is what we do all the time in The War Room. But there are other facets. I’m not just going to be sitting there recommending options trades. I’m going to be recommending stock trades too. There are different levels of risk, and I’m not going to change my risk profile just because I’ve entered The War Room. The reason that Bryan and I are doing this is we’ve had all these years of experience perfecting our strategy, and this is what we are going to share. But the difference is we’re going to share them in real time.

Bryan Bottarelli: I think the answer is simple, and the only risk associated with The War Room is not trading this way. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, Karim for 30. We wouldn’t still be doing this successfully if we took crazy risks, lost and just hemorrhaged money. It’s been quite the opposite. We, over a number of years, have traded this way and have grown our trading accounts year after year after year. This way is actually less risky than just buying something and hoping that the market goes up. This is playing both sides, playing every single day, and it’s just generating 20% after 20% after 20% whenever you want, on your timetable. The risk is not doing this, in my opinion.

Steve McDonald: This makes so much sense. We have the technology to do this. It’s as simple as signing in to your email or signing in to any other website. So why has it taken so long to come up with this? This just seems like something that should have been done years ago.

Bryan Bottarelli: It’s something that I have always wanted to do. The technology behind it was a little bit daunting for me to do personally, and now I have this really fantastic team that’s able to take the vision that I have in my head and deliver it to people who want it. And they do want it. We just got back from the 21st Annual Investment U Conference where we unveiled this product, and people are just saying, “I’m so glad that this is finally available because this is something that I’ve always wanted.”

Karim Rahemtulla: It makes total sense. People want things in real time now. We’ve got the technology. Why not give it to them?

Steve McDonald: I’m going to put you both on the spot. What kind of returns do you have in mind for this operation? What do you think the average guy can expect?

Bryan Bottarelli: Well, it’s probably different from my perspective and Karim’s, so I can go first and say that my goal with this service is to deliver a 20% return per day trading. Over my 12 years of trading, winners and losers, my track record is 13% per trade. I’m trying to increase that up to a 20% per trade per day. So that’s my goal to deliver to people in The War Room.

Steve McDonald: What about on your side, Karim?

Karim Rahemtulla: I think Bryan is going to achieve his goal. My goal is a little different. I’m looking at the wins and losses as percentages because the type of trading I do may not have the quick 20% a day return. I’m looking at trying to achieve two or three times the market’s return for the year, but doing it in a different fashion, using more of the fundamentals.

Steve McDonald: Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The War Room, trading all day every day, live. No time delay. It’s amazing. When I said in my intro I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in years, I wasn’t exaggerating.

Guys, thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate your time.

Bryan Bottarelli: You bet, Steve.

Karim Rahemtulla: Thanks, Steve.

Steve McDonald: It’s my pleasure. And for everybody here at the Market Wake-Up Call, thank you so much for being a part of this. There’s a link below with more information about this. Take a look. Real time is here. It’s going to pay. We’ll see you next week.