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My Take On The Banking Crisis

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 3/13/2023 7 min read

Over the last few days, I’ve been bombarded with questions regarding the regional banking crisis.

And if you’ve been following me on social media, you know I’ve been sounding the alarm.

As someone who has traded through the dot com bubble and the 2008 financial crisis, I can tell you what we’re experiencing in the markets right now isn’t anything new.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not scary.

Some traders will get wiped out, while others will come out in an even stronger position.

Here’s what I’ve been telling my students…

 

Don’t Step In Front of a Freight Train

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Unless you have a direct line to the Fed or FDIC, you’re just guessing how things will turn out.

In March of 2008, Bear Sterns collapsed.

You can find an old video on YouTube of Jim Cramer telling folks that Bear Sterns was fine and not to take their money out.

But despite the collapse of Bear Sterns, the market kept on ripping higher up until the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which was in September of 2008.

Again, before Lehman’s collapse, everyone said the bank was fine. Even employees were surprised when it went under.

You saw how quickly SVB Financial Group (SIVB) and Signature Bank (SBNY) lost market value…

Many of these regional banks look “cheap” right here.

But how do you really know?

Things could get significantly worse before they get better.

One of your most important roles as a trader is to preserve capital.

That’s why my number #1 rule is to cut losses quickly.

And while I won’t be surprised if we see some monster bounces in some of these banking stocks, it just seems like you’re stepping in front of a freight train.

This is not the time to try to be a hero.

I Would Rather Miss A Bounce And Be Overly Safe

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I like trading easy and predictable setups. People on social media often tease me about that. They ask me when I will trade “real” stocks and why I don’t trade bigger…

Profits are profits.

Whether you make them from trading sophisticated options strategies or penny stocks…the money looks the same in your trading account.

You don’t get bonus points for making trading harder.

I prefer to be cautious and trade setups that have brought me success in the past. 

A week from now, these bank stocks could be trading significantly higher. But what if they’re not?

If I’m going to lose money trading, I want to lose it from trading my best setups.

 

The Only Thing We Can Control Is Our Risk

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The idea of set-it-and-forget-it investing is so appealing. Buy some stocks, let them do their thing, and you’re rich.

However, it never seems to work out that way.

Usually, what happens is investors panic during a sell-off and get crushed. That’s why investing in individual stocks is so hard.

Meanwhile, day-trading penny stocks may appear riskier. But at the end of the day, your account is in cash. In other words, you don’t have overnight risk.

Sure, it requires you to learn new skills.

And it takes time to learn them.

However, you can sleep much safer at night, not worrying about the next shoe to drop.

Moreover, you come into each trading day fresh and ready to attack any opportunity you see. If you have a portfolio and your positions are down significantly, you’re more likely to trade with hesitancy.

Trade Uncorrelated Assets

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The banking sector has ties to the entire economy.

For example, if large companies can’t get access to their funds, then they can’t pay their employees.

The ripple effect is massive.

On Monday morning, ETSY (ETSY) said the company had payment issues related to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, impacting a small group of sellers.

The regional banking crisis impacted asset managers like Schwab Corp (SCHW) and American International Group (AIG) insurers.

The spillover can be far and wide.

But if you trade uncorrelated assets like penny stocks, you can avoid much of the mess we see in the market.

It’s what I teach my students to trade. 

One of my top students, Jack Kellogg, has taken my teachings and developed his own trading style.

One of the big misconceptions is that if you want to make money in the stock market, you have to trade the stuff they write about in the newspapers and talk about on TV.

I’ve made over $7.4 million trading stocks that most people have never heard of before. 

And like I said earlier, you don’t get bonus bucks for trading popular stocks.

Bottom Line

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I hope this regional banking crisis gets resolved soon. It would hurt a lot of small businesses, which is not fair, considering they were not the ones who did anything wrong.

The last thing we want is for people to lose faith in our banking system.

At the same time, now is not the time to try to be a hero.

Stay safe out there, and be cautious.

If you’re tired of buy-hold-and-pray investing and want to give trading a shot, then I invite you to check this out


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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

* 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”