What exactly does PJ Matlock do?
“Well, the short answer is I am a stock trader, more specifically, a day trader. I also run one of the largest stock trading chat rooms out there, Atlas Trading. The majority of my day I’m either trading, managing the room, helping others learn, or posting about my stock picks. I have successfully turned some crazy profits this year. On May 1st of 2020, I started an account with $30,000 and by mid December I was up about 3 million dollars in profits. Some find it hard to believe, I don’t even believe it sometimes but I haven’t had a single losing day since around mid April of 2020. Nearly 200 trading days in a row without ending the trading day with a loss.”
Atlas Trading is one of the largest stock trading chat rooms in the world. Atlas was created by Matlock and a few trading friends, and it now boasts around 85,000 members. The room is free, and offers a deep resource of educational content. Matlock helps bring together traders from around the world to build a community of learning and growth. He provides his stock picks and information on Twitter (@PJ_Matlock) as well as in the Atlas chat room.
“Trading is a skill that must be trained so focus on learning instead of just trying to make money. The money comes as a result of being a good trader. The market loves for some new dumb money to come in and treat it like a casino. Start out with small money or even paper trading and focus on consistency rather than hitting home runs. Oh and do not quit. That’s the only trick to making it really. Keep learning and keep going. You will be tested and will want to give up.”
“Trading is by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Nothing even comes close. I usually pick things up quickly and easily, but I don’t think trading comes naturally to anyone. When I started, I lost almost all of my money, kept depositing more, and then kept losing it. Almost every one around me told me to quit. It broke me both financially and mentally. I don’t come from money, and I didn’t have the money to lose. I have a wife and daughter who depend on me and things got very tight for a while. The main thing that kept me going is knowing other people were making money trading, showing me it was possible to succeed. I knew I could not stop until I figured it out… When every card is stacked against you but you keep going anyway, that’s what success is in my mind. It isn’t about how much you can win, it’s about how much you can lose and keep going.
When asked about his celebrity status in the trading world, PJ explains,
“[I’ve never thought of myself as a public figure] but I have a fairly large following. I get a ton of messages daily from people I’ve never met telling me thank you for helping them in some way or another. Those messages really make my day. Making money alone is nice but if you can do it while simultaneously helping others, then it’s on another level. As I was growing many people asked me why I doing all of this for free. In my mind there are enough paid services out there. I wanted to create a community for everyone.”
