Small-cap day trading · NASDAQ · NYSE
You have scattered questions and don't know what to study first
I teach you small-cap day trading with order and math: 318 guides, from the first word to the system. Cajeta already unfolded the map.
No hunches. Formulas.
Start here · two videos, two and a half minutes
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1 · The problem. You open a trading video. Then another one. Then a chat where someone posts a ticker, and another course that promises what the last one didn't give you. By the end of the day you have forty tabs open and the same question: what do I study first? And what weighs most is feeling that everyone speaks a language nobody taught you. Float. Halt. SSR. 424B. Asking makes you feel like a beginner, and not asking leaves you just as lost. Here's the thing: you don't lack information. You have too much. You lack the order, and you lack the math. Every decision in the market has a probability and a size. If you don't do the math beforehand, the market does it for you afterwards. I'm Mario Maldonado. No hunches: formulas. In the next video I'll show you the map.
2 · The expedition. This is mariomaldonado.com, and it works like an expedition. It's 318 small-cap day trading guides for NASDAQ and NYSE, put in order: each one builds on the previous one, so you never study something you can't understand yet. The map has five stages. Beginner: the language. What you buy when you buy a share, the bid, the ask and how to read a chart. Intermediate: how a small cap moves. Float, dilution, short selling, your watchlist and your session plan. Advanced: patterns defined before you see them, and the official filings almost nobody reads. Systematic: what almost nobody teaches. Expectancy, sample size, streaks and risk of ruin; this is where you measure whether your way of trading has an edge or just got lucky. And the fifth, AI: you put artificial intelligence to work on your own data. Every guide comes with a plain-words explanation, examples and exercises. You can start with one neighborhood, one stage or the whole map in The Edge Society. Cajeta is already at the entrance. Shall we start?
Day trading or systematic day trading
Same hit rate. One ends up and the other ends down.
Two small-cap traders, the same screen, the same 100 trades and the same hits. One decides with what they feel in the moment; the other did the math before getting in. Press play and watch both accounts.
Trade 0 of 100 · hits for both: 0
Day trading
You get in and out in the same session
You buy and sell within the same market day and hold no positions at the close. In NASDAQ and NYSE small caps that happens between the premarket and the last hour.
Systematic day trading
The same thing, with rules that get measured
Every decision comes from written rules that get measured: expectancy, sample size, risk per trade and losing streaks. If a rule can't be measured, it doesn't enter the system.
"Everything in life is math. Why would trading be any different?"Mario Maldonado
The map of the 318 guides
33 packages, 5 stages, one order
Read it like the market heat map: each block is a package and its size is its number of guides. Tap one and see which question it answers.
Tap a block
The five with a border can be bought separately today
The whole map, with its 33 packages, is included in The Edge Society.
- Beginner35 guides · 1,400 USD
- Intermediate73 guides · 2,920 USD
- Advanced105 guides · 4,200 USD
- Systematic55 guides · 2,200 USD
- AI50 guides · 2,000 USD
- All 3189,540 USD · or in Edge, 5,000
Neighborhood 1 of 5 · The stock factory
A share: what are you buying?
People talk about small-cap stocks as if you already know every term. I help you distinguish the basic concepts and understand the vocabulary while Cajeta peers into the factory.
In plain words: a share is a piece of a company. When you understand what that company is made of, the price stops being a number that jumps around and starts to have context.
Buying at the bid or at the ask changes your starting point before the price moves a cent.
Stock market basics without the jargon
500 USDseparately: 1,000 USD
10 guides · Or all 318 included in The Edge Society
Neighborhood 2 of 5 · The float reservoir and the printing press
Why does a small-cap stock spike without news?
You see the price moving, but you're missing what's happening with the company's shares. I help you study float and dilution so you can tell the two concepts apart while Cajeta peers into the printing press.
In plain words: float is the water that actually flows through the reservoir, the shares that can be bought and sold. Dilution is the printing press: when the company prints more shares, the water level changes even if nobody announces it on TV.
If the company doubles its shares, your percentage of the company is cut in half, even if the price doesn't move.
Float and dilution without nasty surprises
550 USDseparately: 1,100 USD
11 guides · Or all 318 included in The Edge Society
Neighborhood 3 of 5 · The lending warehouse
What if you want to sell short and there are no shares to borrow?
You want to study short selling, but borrowing shares leaves you with questions. Cajeta steps up to the model; I help you understand short-selling concepts and the limits of educational simulation.
In plain words: going short means selling something you don't own, borrowed, hoping to buy it back lower. For that, someone has to lend it to you, and that loan has a cost and limited supply, like any warehouse.
Going long, the most you can lose is what you put in. Going short, the loss has no ceiling.
Short selling and simulation without surprises
500 USDseparately: 1,000 USD
10 guides · Or all 318 included in The Edge Society
Neighborhood 4 of 5 · The premarket tower
Does your list have a plan, or just names?
You have stocks on your list, but you struggle to explain why they're there. While Cajeta points to the board, I help you organize the information you study and give your session plan structure.
In plain words: the premarket is the session before the open, when the first orders of the day move. A watchlist with a plan says why each stock is there and what would have to happen for it to come off.
With a reward twice your risk, the break-even hit rate is 33%. Do you know the one for your plan?
Watchlist and session plan without improvising
600 USDseparately: 1,200 USD
12 guides · Or all 318 included in The Edge Society
Neighborhood 5 of 5 · The order book
Was the pattern clear, or do you already know the ending?
The pattern looks obvious to you once the move is over. Cajeta stops beside the trapdoor; I help you study patterns with clear criteria and tell an explanation from an impression.
In plain words: the order book shows who wants to buy and who wants to sell, and at what price. A pattern only counts when you define it beforehand and measure it over many trades, not when you recognize it afterwards.
Twenty trades prove nothing. With a 55% hit rate, in 100 trades it's typical to run into five or six losses in a row.
Patterns without traps
500 USDseparately: 1,000 USD
10 guides · Or all 318 included in The Edge Society
Gift · The 100-trade simulator
How many losses in a row can your plan take?
Move the three numbers and watch a thousand versions of the same 100 trades. It's the tool I teach you to use before believing any plan, starting with your own.
Educational simulation with example numbers you choose. It's not a prediction and it doesn't describe anyone's results.
Gift · The pit calculator
Falling is fast. Climbing out costs double.
Pick how far an account falls and see how far it has to climb to get back to the same place.
To get back you need to climb
The math: climb needed = drop ÷ (1 − drop). That's why in the system risk is decided before you enter, not after you fall.
The next 6 months
The next 6 months will pass anyway. What will you have when they do?
Two versions of you with the same calendar. One follows alerts and hunches; the other walks the map. Move through the months and compare them.
You, by hunch and alerts
You get in because someone posted a ticker
A name and an arrow pointing up show up in a chat. You get in. If it goes well, you don't know why. If it goes badly, you don't know why either.
Three losses in a row and you change everything
You don't know whether it was the plan, the execution or a normal streak. So you switch strategies again and start from zero.
Another course that repeats what you've seen
It puts a new name on the same thing. You pay for chapter one for the third time.
News you didn't know how to read
The stock crashes on a company announcement. There was a new share offering in it, but nobody taught you how to read it.
A pattern that worked twice
And you already take it as proven. Twice isn't a sample: it's a lucky anecdote.
The same question as on day one
Six months later you still can't answer whether your way of trading has an edge. You have screenshots and a feeling.
You, with the map of the 318
You speak the language
Bid, ask, float, halt, SSR. You open a small-cap chart and know what you're looking at. The quote screen stops making you dizzy.
You know how much to risk before you get in
You know every order type, what trading really costs you and how many losses in a row are normal for your plan, before they arrive.
You define patterns before you see them
You write the rules first and look at the chart afterwards. What only looked clear at the end stops fooling you.
You read what the company reports
Offerings, warrants, shelfs, ATM. You know how many new shares a small cap can print before it surprises you.
Your journal is data now
Expectancy, sample size, streaks and risk of ruin. You know how many trades you need before you believe a rule.
You can measure whether your plan has an edge
You calculate it yourself, with your own data, and put artificial intelligence on the heavy lifting. You no longer depend on anyone's alert.
318 guides in 6 months is fewer than 2 a day.
At your own pace. The math: 318 ÷ 182 days = 1.7 guides a day.
Both of you reach month 6. Only one knows where they stand.
Would it be crazy for your month 1 to start today?
Do the price math
Choose what you want to study and see what you pay
Two ways in
Where do you start?
If you're starting from zero
All 3 workshops for 98 USD
From vocabulary to expectancy in 3 h 31 min of video, with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. What you pay is credited toward The Edge Society.
See the workshopsIf you've already taken courses
The Edge Society: 5,000 USD once
The 318 guides with lifetime updates, the workshops, the Discord and two classes a week. Separately, the guides alone cost from 9,540 to 31,800 USD. Only 888 spots.
Explore The Edge SocietyThe hidden door
What's behind this door?
Cajeta found a door that isn't on the map. Behind it is The Session: the 318 guides, the workshops, the Discord, two classes a week with me and the recordings of every past one, in a single payment.
Plus: only members can buy Centinela and Database Creator with a one-time payment, and they pay 80% less for the indicators.
Only 888 lifetime spots. After that, monthly only.
Who Mario is
I'm Mario, and we're here to study
I paid more than 100 thousand dollars for courses, mentorships and bootcamps, and I have more than 10 thousand hours in front of the screen, from 3 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nobody gave me the order, so I built it, with more than a hundred formulas of probability, risk and statistics. In the guides I show you which one to use and when. Cajeta settles beside my notebook.
Gift · The 8 calculations before you trade
The list I check before believing any plan
- Expectancy
- Break-even hit rate
- Profit factor
- Risk fraction
- Simulation of a thousand versions
- Risk of ruin
- Expected maximum drawdown
- Recovery time
SMALLCAP MARKET SYSTEMS LLC uses your email to send you what you asked for and, now and then, other educational emails. You can unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Policy
Satisfaction guarantee
30 days to decide whether the content works for you
The workshops come with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, and what you pay for them is credited toward The Edge Society if you join later. Cajeta waits at the start of the routes.
See the workshopsWho it's not for
Want to learn to think for yourself?
You come here to study concepts, interpret data and practice; I provide the explanations and Cajeta opens the map. If you're looking for someone to choose your trades, this path isn't a fit.
The city dictionary
What people search most about small-cap day trading, in one sentence
These are the questions people type into Google. Here's the short answer; the full explanation, with examples and exercises, is in the guides.
Small cap stock
What is a small cap stock?
A small company by market value: it's worth little on the exchange compared with the big ones. NASDAQ and NYSE list hundreds, and they tend to move a lot more than the big names.
Premarket
What is premarket trading?
The session before the 9:30 a.m. New York open. The first orders of the day move here, and the watchlist takes shape.
Gap up
What is a gap up in stocks?
The jump between yesterday's close and today's price. If a stock closed at $2 and opens at $3, it gapped up 50%.
Float
What is float in stocks?
The shares that can actually be bought and sold, not counting the ones held by executives and insiders. A small float moves on little volume.
Dilution
What is dilution in stocks?
When the company issues new shares. There are more slices of the same pie, so each share represents a smaller part of the company.
VWAP
What is VWAP?
The day's average price weighted by volume: what was paid on average for each share traded. It's used as a reference for the session's price.
Level 2
What is Level 2 market data?
The list of buy and sell orders at each price, beyond the best bid and ask. It's the line of people waiting on each side.
Trading halt
What is a trading halt?
A mandatory pause in trading of a stock, for example when the price moves too fast or news is pending.
Short selling
How does short selling work?
You borrow shares, sell them, and hope to buy them back lower to return them. If the price goes up, the loss has no ceiling.
Short interest
What is short interest?
The percentage of shares that are sold short. When it's high and the price rises, short sellers can be forced to buy back: the short squeeze.
Drawdown
What is drawdown in trading?
The drop from an account's highest point to its lowest. A 50% drop needs a 100% gain to get back to where you were.
Expectancy
What is expectancy in trading?
What you make on average per trade after subtracting the trades you lose. If it's negative, trading more only speeds up the loss.
Day trading
What is day trading?
Opening and closing within the same day. The real question is with what rules, and how you know whether those rules work.
Getting started
How to start trading?
With the vocabulary. Without the words, every video is noise. That's why the map starts at the stock factory.
What you're asking yourself
Questions before you enter
What is small-cap day trading?
Buying and selling shares of small companies listed on NASDAQ and NYSE within the same session. They have few shares available and wide moves, so they're studied with rules and numbers.
What is systematic day trading?
Day trading with written rules measured with statistics: expectancy, sample size, risk per trade and streaks. If a rule can't be measured, it doesn't enter the system.
Do I need to know the stock market to start?
No. Neighborhood 1, Stock market basics without the jargon, starts with vocabulary and basic concepts.
Are you going to tell me what to buy?
No. It's education: you study concepts, data and practice, and you make your own trading decisions. We don't give signals or manage accounts.
What's included in The Edge Society?
The 318 guides, the workshops, the Discord, two classes a week with me and the recordings of past classes and live sessions, for 5,000 USD one time. Only members can buy Centinela and Database Creator with a one-time payment (3 years of monthly fees with 50% off already applied), and they pay 80% less for the indicators. Only 888 lifetime spots. After that, monthly only.
Is what I pay for guides or packages credited toward The Edge Society?
No. Only the workshops are credited toward your entry. Guides and packages are paid separately because The Edge Society already includes all 318. If you plan to study more than a couple of neighborhoods, do the math before you buy.
Why so much math if I want to learn to trade?
Because every trade is a decision with a probability and a size. Math doesn't replace your judgment: it tells you whether an idea holds up over a hundred trades or only looked good in two. That's why the route ends in systematic day trading.
Where do I start?
If you're starting from zero, at the stock factory. If you already have a watchlist, at the premarket tower. If you already trade daily, at the lending warehouse.
Your starting point
Your first street is already marked.
Pick the neighborhood that gives you the most trouble today and walk in with the order already set. Cajeta leads the way.