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How I Found The Biggest % Gainers This Week

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Written by Timothy Sykes Reviewed by Jack Kellogg Fact-checked by Ellis Hobbs
Updated 11/20/2025 7 min read
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It’s almost physically painful for me to watch…

So many traders are blowing up in this market.

They’re trading too often, too aggressively, with too much size.

And they’re losing.

Not just money.

But also time, mental energy, and opportunity cost.

The worst part is, they’re trading crap setups…

While simultaneously missing out on some AMAZING small call and microcap plays…

Don’t be like those guys.

You can trade successfully without trading traditional stocks…

Here’s how:

Be opportunistic in this market. You don’t have to trade every day.

A month ago, there were around 10 good small-cap setups every day. Sometimes 15.

Now? There are (maybe) 1-2 good setups per day.

Recognize the market backdrop and adapt to the environment you’re trading.

That means being more selective.

But there’s a big difference between being picky and thinking there are zero tradeable setups right now…

Let me show you how I found the biggest % winners in this market.

CYPH

I made a great call on CYPH last week.

But I didn’t execute it perfectly.

It was one of my best entries, followed by one of my worst exits.

And frankly, the bad exit wiped out a lot of the good entry.

I was long during the worst 4-minute stretch of the day.

I got stopped out right here:

And as soon as I got stopped out, the stock blasted off.

That’s the reality of trading in this choppy market.

The margins between disciplined cutting and patiently waiting are razor-thin.

Had I waited 20 minutes, it would’ve been a nice win.

But does that mean I was wrong? Do I regret my decision to prioritize risk over reward in this sketchy market?

Absolutely not.

CLIK

CLIK was another crazy move.

The company had big acquisition news on the afternoon of November 17.

It ran from $6.26 to $9 in after-hours, then formed a base around $7.50.

The next morning, from 4-4:30 a.m., it went right back from the mid-$7s to the $9s.

All of these people were asking me, “Tim, why are you up so early?!”

I was just going where the market took me.

From there, I thought the chart would hold $8.

And while it did hold that level for the majority of the day, the stock never really found momentum again.

It couldn’t bounce. It couldn’t even get back to the mid-$8s until around 3 p.m.

I’m not gonna hold this random stock all day on the small odds that it might come back to the $9s.

I took a shot. I tried to be patient with it.

Because the CYPH trade was still fresh in my mind…

I wanted to adapt to the mistake I’d made on CYPH (not being aggressive enough).

But I leaned too far into that adaptation (too aggressive on CLIK).

Keep in mind, I’m paper trading all month. I’m in full-on test mode.

I don’t need to take trades right now.

But if I see a great setup, I’m obviously gonna take it.

More Breaking News

And during my November 18 Trading Challenge webinar, that’s exactly what happened.

SGBX

SGBX is a multi-day runner with a really nice chart…

Notice how it spikes, then holds gains. Spikes, holds gains. Spikes, holds gains.

That’s what you want to see in a multi-day runner.

It tells you other traders are seeing the same trend. There are more buyers than sellers.

That’s what creates (and sustains) uptrends.

SGBX was slowly building momentum before breaking out in after-hours on November 18.

It was around 6 p.m. when SGBX cracked the multi-day breakout level at $3.98.

It spiked to $4.20, came back to re-test $4, then entered a beautiful uptrend to hit $4.71.

I don’t try to trade pre-market and after-hours…

But when I see the multi-day breakout, former Supernova, nice intraday spiking, and the move over $4…

The stock forced me to.

The next day, SBGX gapped down dramatically.

Normally, I would’ve cut it immediately on that gap down.

But since I’m paper trading, trying to test ideas, and being curious…

I waited to see if it would hold that same $3.98 area (former resistance becoming support).

It did. After holding $3.98, it bounced to $4.60.

That’s when I knew I needed to get out.

A 70-cent bounce in 9 minutes? I’m not taking that for granted.

What would’ve been a $1,500 (paper) loss became a $1,000 (paper) gain.

At that point, I didn’t write SBGX off. I didn’t remove it from my watchlist. I kept eyeing it…

But I had gotten so little sleep, I had to take a 3-hour nap…

When I woke up, SGBX was taking off again.

I watched it run all day, and then dip into the close.

I figured the dip would lure in short sellers, leading to a potential after-hours squeeze.

I bought it at $6.90ish, 50 cents from the highs:

Sure enough, it squeezed in after hours…

It’s about getting inside the short sellers’ heads.

Trust me. I know how they think. I used to be a short seller…

And this price action is EXACTLY why I DON’T SHORT anymore.

Near the close, the shorts thought they had won. They thought it was over when they saw the dip from the low-$7s to sub-$6.

The shorts didn’t realize the after-hours squeeze was in play.

It eventually squeezed all the way to $8…

Thanks, short SELLERS!

My students and I took advantage of their “short”-sighted vision (excuse the pun).

Again, I’m paper trading, so I didn’t actually make real money.

But I still learned some important lessons from these trades.

I’m still trying to understand how to trade this market.

Just like you, I’m still learning:

When to be patient, when to get aggressive, and how to size my positions for maximum risk/reward.

Focus on multi-day breakout levels, have your price targets in mind before you enter, and plan your trades carefully.

If you can take those steps…

You can find the top % gainers in the market … just like I did.

 

Cheers,

Tim

 

 

*Past performance does not indicate future results

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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.
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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”