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Millionaire Mentor Update: Seychelles Edition

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 2/22/2021 10 min read

Can you guess where I am now?

No matter where I am in the world, I make time for my Trading Challenge students. Video lessons, webinars, live Q&A, and more. Every week. Learn more about Trading Challenge.

Save the Reef Location #5: Seychelles

After the crazy ‘7 cities in 7 days’ whirlwind I shared with you last week, I headed off to Seychelles for my birthday. I’m also working on the save the reef project during my visit.

We’re working on a documentary about the reefs. It’s due to be released on World Oceans Day, which is Saturday, June 8. This is a massive, massive project. We’ve brought two dozen photographers and videographers to several locations. In each location we’re shooting video, taking photos, editing, writing …

So far we’ve been to Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, Belize, and now Seychelles is number five.

This is an incredibly important project. Here’s what you can do to help …

First: Go to Save the Reef and join the mailing list. We still haven’t built out the website but there’s a landing page where you can get on the list. As we get closer to World Oceans Day we’ll let you know how things are progressing. Don’t worry, no spam.

Second: Follow Save the Reef on Instagram. While you’re there, check out some of the amazing and beautiful pics and videos. This is what we’re going to help save. You have a role to play. Let’s do this. Together.

Third: Learn as much as you can about World Oceans Day. Get involved. Get friends and family involved. You’ll find more about World Oceans Day on the United Nations website: UN World Oceans Day page.

Finally: Start using the following hashtags on social media. Let’s make more people aware: #worldoceansday #saveourocean #savethereef #karmagawa

Let’s work together to protect our most important natural resource. The ocean is like the lungs of planet Earth. Let’s spread the word to help clean up our oceans and keep breathing.

Trading On the Go

© Millionaire Media, LLC

I’m traveling so much that I’m taking very small trades.

There’s an important lesson in this. When life is busy or gets in the way, you can trade smaller. Too many people don’t do that. Don’t think you have to trade all the time and don’t think you have to trade big.

Last week the market wasn’t that hot. We’re not seeing big 500–1,000% spikers. At least not that often. So take smaller positions. Get better at trading by adapting to the market. It seems simple but too many traders don’t heed this advice and suffer later.

This week the market is heating up a little. I’ll have more to share about some interesting trades in next week’s update. Stay tuned.

My Best Birthday Trade: EDXC

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As I said, I’ve taken small trades this week. Let’s take a look at my birthday trade …

Yes, I traded on my birthday! If the markets are open and I have access to wifi I’m at least hunting for a trade. After all, I missed my college graduation for a trade. (I probably wouldn’t do it again, in hindsight. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do.) Anyway, it was the best trade.

CBD Unlimited Inc (OTCPK: EDXC) has been on a steady upward trend since early March. They’ve had several press releases about their CBD based products. There was positive news about labeling and production runs. From the beginning of March EDXC has gone from roughly 17 cents to 70 cents a share.

Take a look at the chart for this overnight play:

EDXC chart: 15-16 April; first green day overnight hold

This is one of my favorite patterns. EDXC was finishing strong on a first green day after a couple of small red daily candles. I bought into the afternoon strength. When the markets opened the next day, I let the first few minutes play out. When it didn’t go anywhere, I got out — taking the single. A small $575 win.*

EDXC kept moving up over the next couple of days to 70 cents. But it doesn’t fit my current trading strategy to hold for several days.

One of the most important concepts I teach my Trading Challenge students is: Adapt to the markets. And your personal schedule. Sometimes that means taking small trades or no trades at all. Another important lesson is to take the single when you have it instead of swinging for the fences.

What My Students Are Reporting

Many are trading a lot of the volatility plays like Vital Therapies Inc (NASDAQ: VTL). [Note: This company changed its name to Immunic Inc. and started trading under the ticker IMUX on April 15.] This was the most active with over 86 million shares traded. Other tickers my students traded include:

  • Taronis Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: TRNX) was a volatile big mover on April 12.
  • Kitov Pharma Ltd (NASDAQ: KTOV) had a big pre-market spike on April 12.
  • Castor Maritime Inc. (NASDAQ: CTRM) had a nice spike and then late market crash, also on April 12.
  • Phunware Inc. (NASDAQ: PHUN) made some nice moves for a couple of days.
  • Yangtze River Port and Logistics Ltd. (NASDAQ: YRIV) had some plays.

There’s been a lot of choppiness. Nothing truly huge or amazing. Lots of little plays. One of the best ways to see how my students are doing is to follow me on Twitter. I re-tweet when students share their trades. Good and bad alike.

Again, you have to adapt to the market environment. I teach my students to do research and put together a daily watchlist. Sometimes there’s not much in play. Other times there might be plays but they aren’t your set-up. And that’s OK. Better safe on the sidelines than left holding the bag in a trade going against you. Which brings up Rule #1: cut losses quickly.

I do create a daily watchlist and share it with Trading Challenge students. Also with PennyStocking Silver subscribers. I even put together a weekly list sent out by email to anyone interested. Get access to my weekly watchlist list and roundup at Tim Sykes Watchlist — no charge.

Finally …

Question of the Week

“Tim, on April 3, OPTT ran from $4.90 pre-market to $16.20 and then all the way back to $7.76 in one day. What are some Tim-specific things we can learn by studying charts?”

Below is the Ocean Power Technologies (NASDAQ: OPTT) chart from April 3. Take a look and then I’ll answer the question.

OPTT stock chart
(OPTT chart: intraday, April 3)

In short: Wow … here’s what you need to know …

Don’t short too early. A lot of newbies think they can just short anything that goes up and they short too soon. They get crushed. Even though OPTT fell late in the day, a lot of newbie shorts got absolutely annihilated. They got too excited and shorted too early. That’s what creates a squeeze.

On the other side, it’s a good thing there are so many newbie shorts because that’s what creates squeezes. If you’re a newbie short I would say just be careful. Wait to short the back side. (I recommend newbies and traders with small accounts avoid short selling.) Learn more about short selling in this post.

If you’re a newbie long …

… look for these kinds of terrible companies that have massive volume. This is what potentially creates these kinds of short squeezes.

Here’s another example of a recent short squeeze. ATA Inc (NASDAQ: ATAI) had one big up day on April 10. So all these newbie shorts were saying “Oh, terrible company, let me short it.” And that created the squeeze that was a big spike on day two. (See the chart.) Even though on days three and four it did go down, most newbie shorts lost.

Check out the chart …

ATAI stock short
(ATAI chart: newbie shorts got crushed)

So we’re grateful. Don’t tell too many people about newbie shorts. Let’s continue having them screwing up. It creates big squeezes and big opportunities.

Millionaire Mentor Market Wrap

There it is, another week in the books. Grateful for my time in Seychelles working, trading, and playing. It’s an awesome life.

I want you to experience your dream life. Since it was my birthday last week, the team and I decided to run some specials for you …

And there’s a special trial-offer on StocksToTrade: 14 days for $7. That’s a no-brainer. For less than a cup of coffee and a muffin, you get 14 days to see why STT is the one stock scanner to rule them all. Whenever students ask where I get my picks, my answer is always StocksToTrade. All my favorite scans are built right in.

More next week. In the meantime, please remember these hashtags on social: #worldoceansday #saveourocean #savethereef #karmagawa

Are you a trader? How are you dealing with the recent choppy markets? New to trading? Comment below. I love to hear from all my readers!


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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”