timothy sykes logo

Penny Stock Basics

10 Reasons Why I Am A Trading Mentor/Teacher

Timothy SykesAvatar
Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 1/20/2023 3 min read

As I wrote about the other day reviewing some recent press I’ve gotten, About.com did a nice little feature on me:

July 29, 2011: About.com Profile: Tim Sykes Got His Business Noticed with a Compelling Personal Narrative

The author likes my marketing and story, but basically asks why I would teach if I really knew the secret to getting rich?

I’ve been teaching now nearly 4 years and because most of the other trading gurus are absolute frauds and charlatans, I’m more than a little used to this question and if more people actually went out on a limb and trusted this self-mde millionaire a bit more, they’d find that my study guides in no way shape or form attempt to claim that I know the secret to getting rich…I’m just a consistently profitable trader who’s usually earned between $200,000 and $700,000 annually and there’s a lot to be learned from that.

Here’s why I teach:

1. Far and away because of THIS

2. Thanks to the popularity of #1, I began getting 100, 200 sometimes 300 emails/day form people wanting to learn from me…emails which I had to turn away as a hedge fund manager…I adapted to the demand by closing my hedge fund and creating my publishing company…now I get 2,000+ emails/day and I love it!

3. Being a secretive hedge fund manager who takes a small cut from the profits of a few very rich people is not my end goal in life…nor should it be anybody’s, I greatly prefer helping the poorest, dumbest, most incompetent people not be themselves as often (aka molding them into becoming wise, meticulous and self-sufficient people)

4. I have a big mouth, I like to hear myself talk and it feels good to do good in the world…all I have to be is 100% honest about what I do right and wrong, a task I think I’ve accomplished quite well.

5. Out of my 2,000+ daily emails, roughly 10-20 of them are from people who have lost big on the same stocks I’ve banked on…I need to get to them sooner to help them avoid this sad fate.

6. Before Profitly and Investimonials and projects, transparency in online finance didn’t exist…this is a long battle and I’ve only just begun.

7. Trading is a lonely, unfulfilling (other than monetary rewards) profession…teaching is the exact opposite and thanks to my superior business model, it’s not only very gratifying, I’ve also become one of the highest paid teachers in the world.

8. Unlike others who claim big gains in penny stocks, I can actually prove it and more importantly, my success is replicable and achievable since I’m not even a great trader!

9. My success as a teach/mentor will hopefully inspire a few other profitable traders to take up my lead and I’ll have started to get the ball rolling on something that’s never happened before in this industry: real traders teaching trading.

10. For all my success, hard work and experience, my strategy is not scalable aka I cannot manage hundreds of millions of dollars…it is an ideal strategy for people with less than $1 million, people who account for the majority of my 4 newsletters.


How much has this post helped you?


Leave a reply


Author card Timothy Sykes picture

Timothy Sykes

Tim Sykes is a penny stock trader and teacher who became a self-made millionaire by the age of 22 by trading $12,415 of bar mitzvah money. After becoming disenchanted with the hedge fund world, he established the Tim Sykes Trading Challenge to teach aspiring traders how to follow his trading strategies. He’s been featured in a variety of media outlets including CNN, Larry King, Steve Harvey, Forbes, Men’s Journal, and more. He’s also an active philanthropist and environmental activist, a co-founder of Karmagawa, and has donated millions of dollars to charity. Read More

Post image

Get my weekly watchlist, free

Sign up to jump start your trading education!

* Results are not typical and will vary from person to person. Making money trading stocks takes time, dedication, and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing in the stock market, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk. See Terms of Service here

The available research on day trading suggests that most active traders lose money. Fees and overtrading are major contributors to these losses.

A 2000 study called “Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors” evaluated 66,465 U.S. households that held stocks from 1991 to 1996. The households that traded most averaged an 11.4% annual return during a period where the overall market gained 17.9%. These lower returns were attributed to overconfidence.

A 2014 paper (revised 2019) titled “Learning Fast or Slow?” analyzed the complete transaction history of the Taiwan Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2006. It looked at the ongoing performance of day traders in this sample, and found that 97% of day traders can expect to lose money from trading, and more than 90% of all day trading volume can be traced to investors who predictably lose money. Additionally, it tied the behavior of gamblers and drivers who get more speeding tickets to overtrading, and cited studies showing that legalized gambling has an inverse effect on trading volume.

A 2019 research study (revised 2020) called “Day Trading for a Living?” observed 19,646 Brazilian futures contract traders who started day trading from 2013 to 2015, and recorded two years of their trading activity. The study authors found that 97% of traders with more than 300 days actively trading lost money, and only 1.1% earned more than the Brazilian minimum wage ($16 USD per day). They hypothesized that the greater returns shown in previous studies did not differentiate between frequent day traders and those who traded rarely, and that more frequent trading activity decreases the chance of profitability.

These studies show the wide variance of the available data on day trading profitability. One thing that seems clear from the research is that most day traders lose money .

Millionaire Media 66 W Flagler St. Ste. 900 Miami, FL 33130 United States (888) 878-3621 This is for information purposes only as Millionaire Media LLC nor Timothy Sykes is registered as a securities broker-dealer or an investment adviser. No information herein is intended as securities brokerage, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any company, security or fund. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes cannot and does not assess, verify or guarantee the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information, the suitability or profitability of any particular investment, or the potential value of any investment or informational source. The reader bears responsibility for his/her own investment research and decisions, should seek the advice of a qualified securities professional before making any investment, and investigate and fully understand any and all risks before investing. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes in no way warrants the solvency, financial condition, or investment advisability of any of the securities mentioned in communications or websites. In addition, Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes accepts no liability whatsoever for any direct or consequential loss arising from any use of this information. This information is not intended to be used as the sole basis of any investment decision, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the investment needs of any particular investor. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns.

Citations for Disclaimer

Barber, Brad M. and Odean, Terrance, Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Available at SSRN: “Day Trading for a Living?”

Barber, Brad M. and Lee, Yi-Tsung and Liu, Yu-Jane and Odean, Terrance and Zhang, Ke, Learning Fast or Slow? (May 28, 2019). Forthcoming: Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=2535636”

Chague, Fernando and De-Losso, Rodrigo and Giovannetti, Bruno, Day Trading for a Living? (June 11, 2020). Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=3423101”