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Your Top Trading Questions, ANSWERED! My Responses to New-Trader FAQs

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 4/7/2022 10 min read

I get asked the same trading questions over and over by new traders — but I usually don’t answer them.

It’s not that I don’t care … I just rarely have the time. When I’m teaching my Trading Challenge students about penny stocks and day trading strategies, I focus on more specific trading lessons based on the current market.

But today, I’m making time for you. So even though I don’t usually do Q&A sessions like this…

New traders — ALL traders, in fact — NEED to know these things.

Warning: What you’re about to read is real and blunt. You might hate me by the end of it. And if not, you might be ready to become my student.

Are you ready for this?

Trading FAQ #1: “How Do I Get Rich in the Stock Market?”

Trading mentor Tim Sykes realizes he made a trading mistake
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This question annoys me because it’s usually followed by “give me a hot pick.”

Wrong mindset. There are problems with just following my stock picks…

  • You’ll be dependent on me.
  • I’m not right all the time.

That’s why I say that I’m like training wheels for my students. I’m not here to tell you what to do. I want to teach you what I’ve learned in my 20+ years of trading so that you can develop your own trading strategy and make your own decisions.

I’m not gonna reward wannabe traders by giving them hot picks. That would be like rewarding a baby for bad behavior. Don’t be a bad baby — I’m not gonna give you stuff if you are. I want to teach you discipline and rules.

Trading FAQ #2: “Why Isn’t Your Trading Challenge Free?”

Because I don’t have time for lazy people. If I offered it for free, I’d have to deal with a bunch of BS attitudes. I don’t have the time or sanity for that.

I have plenty of no-cost content on YouTube. If you want to dabble, go to my channel. There are thousands of videos. You can learn a lot.

But my Trading Challenge is only for serious traders.

You have to apply to be my student — I don’t accept just anyone. You’d be surprised by how many people this weeds out.

I don’t need people who disrespect my time or my team’s time. If you’re ready to learn discipline and the rules of trading, this is a fully loaded educational resource.

Trading FAQ #3: “Can You Guarantee That I’ll Be Your Next Millionaire Student?”

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Becoming my student doesn’t mean that you’ll find success at trading. That’s up to you.

But I can say this … All my millionaire students started in my Trading Challenge. I have 20+ millionaire students now. Check out several of them here.

Did you know that across all different asset classes, 90% of traders lose? It’s a tough, tough job. But I believe that many of that 90% lose because of a lack of preparation. I also believe that can be fixed with the right guidance, the right rules, and the right discipline.

Here’s what I can give you:

  • All my lessons
  • All my patterns
  • The tricks that I learned the hard way over 20+ years of trading
  • Lessons from my top students who have become millionaires

But you still need to take what you learn and make it work for you. You’re the one who’s going to have to study and follow the rules. I can’t do that for you.

Trading FAQ #4: “Do You Ever Lose?”

Every trader loses sometimes. Even me. If you look at my Profit.ly page, where I post every single trade publicly, you’ll see that I lose about 25% of the time.

But I’m still profitable overall. At writing, I’m up over $7.3 million in trading profits over the course of my career.

One of the biggest reasons why is that I cut losses quickly.

Every successful trader I know controls their losses.

You cannot let a small loss turn into a potential disaster because of your ego or because you’re stubborn and don’t want to show any losses.

That’s like a pitcher trying to pitch a perfect game. Chasing perfection makes them lose their concentration and they screw up. Then they actually lose the game — all because they’re so worried about perfection.

There’s no such thing as perfection in the stock market. What I care about is passing down the lessons I’ve learned and the rules that really matter to you so that you can speed up your learning curve.

Trading FAQ #5: “Why Do You Share All Your Trades?”

Because most people online are full of crap. They don’t show their real names or all their trades.

I do. Click here to see all of my trades.

Also, I should tell you that I use my trades as lessons. I donate 100% of my trading profits to charity. Check out Karmagawa to see some of the projects I’ve worked on. Actually, I just built my 104th school:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Timothy Sykes (@timothysykes)

I dedicated it to my student Paul. You’ve gotta check out his story — he used his trading profits to buy his mom a house!

But I digress. I share my trades because I want to be real. I want to set an example for my students to be real.

If being real offends you, you don’t have to be on my page — nobody’s forcing you to be here.

Trading FAQ #6: “Why Are You So Blunt?”

what are outstanding shares
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Because so many people are just helpless, and I have no time for that. If you want me to do the work for you, then you probably don’t have what it takes to be a successful penny stock trader.

My bluntness and transparency are what make me successful as both a trader and a teacher. If it’s not for you, that’s fine.

But I’ve even had haters turn into millionaires! My first millionaire student, Michael Goode, actually wrote a blog post talking about how I was full of BS.

I convinced him to try my strategy — now he’s up over $2.6 million in trading profits.

I think that says something about me…

And I believe that I will help create more millionaire students. If you want to be one of them, you must put in the work and use my lessons to become self-sufficient.

  • I don’t want you to follow my picks.
  • In fact, I don’t want you to follow alerts from anybody.
  • Instead, I want you to learn the patterns and the process. 

I alert my plays and my trades in real time because I want you to learn from them. I want you to understand why I buy a stock, why I take profits when I do, and why I cut losses quickly. The more trades you see, the more you start to understand my process.

Do You Get It?

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Most traders will fail. Do me a favor — be different.

Follow instructions. Study. Prepare.

Trading isn’t rocket science, and I believe we’re in the best market that I’ve ever seen. The opportunities are there. Will you be prepared to take advantage of them?

If you understand what I’m saying in this post, you might be ready to take your trading to the next level. Consider applying for my Trading Challenge today.

What do you think of my responses to your FAQs? Leave a comment — and let me know if you have a question that I missed!


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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

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* 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”