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Trading Lessons

Do You Prefer Gimmes or Scalping?

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 2/16/2023 6 min read

If your trading is causing you:

  • Stress
  • Anxiety
  • Sleepless Nights
  • Frustration
  • Anger

Then this will be the most important message you read today.

You see, most newbie traders have been lied to.

They’ve been told they must plop their butt down, sit in front of their screen, and trade all day if they want to make money in the markets…

…that the best traders are scalpers, and you should strive to become one.

Sure … if your goal is to wear down physically and mentally … go for it.

Trading is whatever you want it to be.

You can trade all day and punch keys like a monkey…

Or you can do what I’ve taught my 32 millionaire students…

The key is to focus on A+ Setups like the one I’m about to show you.

Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

tim sykes boat
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Trading is simple when you discover the right setups to play and manage your risk properly.

However, most traders make it hard on themselves. They overtrade bad setups and lose their money.

You can do much better for yourself once you stop trying to scalp pennies and nickels and instead trade less and play for bigger moves. 

Plus, it will be better for your mental and physical health.

I don’t know about you…I’d rather trade easy setups than hard ones.

There’s a reason why I win on more than 75% of my trades

I choose setups that I believe have a high probability of working.

It has nothing to do with my intelligence level … The last thing I want to do is try to outsmart the market.

Focus on ‘gimmes…’

Like Epazz Inc. (EPAZ), a setup I traded on Tuesday.

Breaking Down the Setup in EPAZ

Tim Sykes in a boat in Italy checking the stocks on his top penny stocks list
© Millionaire Media, LLC

You can still find plays in a choppy market if you concentrate on stocks with catalysts.

And that’s exactly what we got in EPAZ on Tuesday.

The Catalyst:

EPAZZ Holdings’ ZenaDrone Open AI Predictive Will Conduct Flight Demos with U.S. Government Agencies. 

Translation: 

EPAZ is doing something with AI, referencing the hottest AI tech platform company Open AI, and it will be conducting flight demos with U.S. government agencies.

Context:

AI has been the hottest sector in 2023. We’ve seen several stocks pump higher after mentioning AI in their press releases, and even more so when including OpenAI, the owner of the ChatGPT platform.

Moreover, EPAZ is a former Supernova spiker.

That tells me that it has the potential to pump off of a press release if the catalyst is strong and the trading volume ramps up.

Now that I know the catalyst and context, one thing remains certain before I place the trade…

The catalyst needs to be confirmed by the price action. 

I want to see the stock trending higher on aggressive volume, breaking out to highs.

By the way, I used this service to find the EPAZ play. 

I jumped on this within the first half hour of trading and grabbed shares at $0.0055.

Knowing that it was a former Supernova trading on heavy volume on its first green day gave me the conviction to take it early, instead of waiting for the afternoon.

EPAZ has a history of large spikes following press-release pumps. 

Here’s the price action I saw on the 1-minute chart.

As you can see, the price action was very clean once it broke out.

To me, this is an easy bullish setup to trade.

As a trader, you can pick to trade clean setups that look clean…or make life hard on yourself by trading more challenging setups.

For example, Expion360 (NASDAQ: XPON), had a nice move up recently…

But good luck trying to trade this type of price action:

Up…down…up…down…up…down…up!

No, thank you!

It’s really easy to get chopped and lose money taking a stock that moved like EPON. 

That’s why I avoid taking hard trades.

And probably why I win more than 75% of my trades and have made over $7.4 million in trading profits.

I ended up making 27% on that EPAZ trade.

I know a few people on social media who messaged me did significantly better, and I am super happy for them.

More Breaking News

I’d rather wait for gimmes than churn my account trading subpar setups.

Bottom Line

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Being a trader doesn’t mean sitting in front of a screen all day and hitting buttons. If you really want to climb the ranks, stop trying to make trading harder than it is.

Instead of jumping from one trade to the next … learn to be more patient and wait for the best setups. Then, only take those!

Once you’ve studied and learned what setups you trade best, then focus on getting the right tools to help you find the plays.

Speaking of tools, the ultimate tool is being revealed tomorrow, February 17, starting at 8 AM ET.

Discover how the Master Algo can improve your trading.

This live event is free to attend as long as you’re registered.

Click to book your seat.   


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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”