
July 30, 2024
Deepak Uppal began his trading journey in the early 1990s. After graduating with an MBA he began working full-time, opened a brokerage account, and started trading. Trading through the 1999-2000 dot com bull market and the 2008 housing crisis paved the way for Deepak to develop his trading strategy.
In 2023, Deepak Uppal was one of the top performers in the United States Investing Championship with a 259% gain.
This blog uncovers how Deepak developed his top-performing system as he shares his trading strategy.
Finding Mentors To Help Develop A System
After gaining substantial money in strong bull markets to take sizeable losses during bear markets, Deepak set out to develop a trading strategy by studying other great traders. Throughout his trading career, Deepak tried his hand at trading options, stocks, commodities, and currencies while experimenting with many different time frames, from day trading to long-term investing.
In 2011, Deepak discovered William O’Neil’s “How to Make Money in Stocks,” which put into perspective what category of stocks to look for. Soon after, he joined Stock Market Mentor with Dan Fitzpatrick and became well-versed in technical analysis.
When Deepak studied Dan Zanger, he understood what types of stocks make the largest moves. Finally, he read Mark Minervini’s books “Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard” and “Think & Trade Like a Champion” to become well-versed in fine-tuning his process.
Some trading mistakes Deepak overcame included:
- Not looking at the right stocks
- Not using stops
- Understanding the market environment
- Managing position sizes
- Specific rules with technical analysis
Understanding Your Trading Stats
When developing a system, you need to understand where your trading stats stand. Your winners must outweigh your losers.
Deepak’s 2023 winning trading stats included:
- Batting Average: 50%
- Average Gain: 3.25%
- Average Loss: 2.3%
- Win / Loss Ratio: 1.41
- Average Hold Time, Gainers: 6 Days
- Average Hold Time, Lossers: 2 Days
- Total Trades (Round Trips): 152
Even though the average gains and losses look small, Deepk capitalizes on position concentration and margin. Margin and concentrated position sizes are utilized only when market conditions are favorable.
Understanding Market Environment
When Deepak looked at his equity curve in relation to the QQQ, he noticed some important aspects that helped build confidence.
- When the market was in a strong uptrend, his performance was great
- When the market was in a downtrend, he experienced losses

Drawing trendlines helps Deepak get a feel for how the market is moving, but more importantly, he relies on his recent trades.
If he buys a breakout and it continues upward, he will begin to press harder, let the winners advance, and increase position sizes. If his trades begin to fail, he reduces position sizes and is quicker to cut losers.
Deepak’s Trading Style
Trading styles vary widely from long-term investing, where investors hold positions for many months to years, to day trading, where positions are opened and then closed within the trading day. You can’t just mimic another trader and replicate their trades – The style of trader you are must match your personality.
Throughout his trading career, Deepak experimented with many different time frames and began to understand that swing trading fit his personality.
Deepak will buy and hold for a few days to a couple of weeks. This allows him to capitalize on quick price movements while minimizing any drawdowns after the move is complete.
Control What You Can
Deepak’s trading process revolves around three controllable aspects.
- Stock Selection: What kind of stocks to buy
- Buying: When and how much to buy
- Selling: When and how much to sell
Understanding that market fluctuations are out of your control allows you psychological freedom to interpret the market’s health. Incorporating post-analysis on your trades then provides feedback on whether your system is in sync with the market environment.
When reviewing your trades look at what the general market is doing, where you bought, where you sold, and begin looking for patterns.
Ask yourself:
- How would my performance change if I didn’t trade when the market was in a downtrend?
- What would happen if I cut all my losers at a lower percentage?
Use this feedback loop to improve your trading stats.
Stock Selection
Many of these stock selection criteria come from his mentors
- Stock in Uptrends (50SMA>200SMA)
- Strong Relative Strength
- Price Over $75
- Growth Industries (Tech, Semis, Retail, Leveraged ETFs)
- High ATR >5%
- Companies With Positive Earnings
Keeping stock selection tight allows you to really focus on their price movement. This expands upon understanding your trading style.
Filtering out the noise from other industries and markets helps you concentrate on the signals given by the individual stocks and the market you trade.
Buying Strategies
Deepak looks for traditional basing patterns like the Cup & Handle and Bull Flags in addition to focusing on the strongest stocks as they pull back into support and consolidate recent gains.
More importantly, the market environment must be right. Deepak looks at the Vix, Put/Call Ratio, Stocks over the 200-day MA Breadth Indicator, and other proprietary corporate indicators.
When the market is in a bullish phase, and the stocks are setting up, Deepak deploys concentrated position sizes and maximizes the use of margin when the stocks are providing positive feedback.
Deepak then uses technical levels on a chart to place his stops below logical support areas.
Selling Based On Averages
Deepak’s maximum risk on any trade is 1% of the total account value, but he typically tries to minimize risk by decreasing this amount. Deepak sells to maintain a 3:1 reward-to-risk ratio.
Selling takes place when the reward-to-risk ratio reaches 3R.
- For Example: If the trade initiated would allow for a $2 loss per share, Deepak will take a profit when the stock shows a $6 gain.
Continuing on how you must understand your trading averages, Deepak will also take profits if the trade is above his average R gain. Other selling strategies include when the stock begins to act abnormally or the market becomes extended.
You can always buy back at another time. Sometimes you have to jockey in and out of a position to get up to full size around the breakout areas.
Trade Examples
Symbol: NTES
Company: NetEase, Inc
Buy: January 11, 2023
Sell: January 11, 2023

At the beginning of the year, Deepak set out to “hit for singles” when he noticed NTES gap up and tightly consolidate. This trade’s original risk was around $2 per share, and profit was taken at $8 per share.
Symbol: NFLX
Company: Netflix, Inc
Buy: May 17, 2023
Sell: May 18, 2023
Buy: June 8, 2023
Sell: June 15, 2023
Buy: July 11, 2023
Sell: July 19, 2023

When analyzing the market in the spring of 2023, Deepak noticed the market wasn’t that strong but began to see strength in mega-cap stocks. After NFLX broke a downtrend line Deepak initiated a position, sold into strength, then bought more once the pullback showed support.
Symbol: AVGO
Company: Broadcom Inc
Buy: December 8, 2023
Sell: December 19, 2023

Sometimes stocks post positive earnings, but the market doesn’t react as strongly as the numbers suggest. After Deepak saw AVGO’s report he entered when the stock broke through a descending trendline for a quick $200 per share gain (chart split-adjusted).
Never Stop Learning
Although successful in the stock market, Deepak advocates for continuing to improve. There is always something new to learn or a way to advance your trading.
Regularly reviewing your past trades can reveal opportunities to maximize profits by selling into strength while adhering to your reward-to-risk ratio. Identify areas where large losses occurred and refine your strategy to minimize future setbacks.
Time and experience will build confidence to improve trade execution. In uncertain times, start small and let the stock, or the market, prove itself.
Risk management is key. Don’t pressure yourself by trying to make money quickly when the market is not cooperating.
Follow your process and believe in yourself.
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