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Millionaire Mentor Update: Save The Reef Documentary

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 1/26/2023 9 min read

Wow. As I write, the Save The Reef documentary already has 876,814 views!

It’s been on YouTube for less than a week.

By the time this is published, it should be working toward 2 million views. Help us by sharing it. Copy this link to share: 50 Minutes to Save the World. Or click on ‘share’ on the video below.

(See how Karmagawa raises money and gives to charities on the Karmagawa FAQ page.)

This was a Herculean task. Check out the credits underneath the documentary on YouTube. You’ll see over 50 people who helped. I’m planning a dedicated post about the project soon. It’s in the works.

For now, I want to give a MASSIVE thanks to everyone involved. Also a shout-out to four amazing hotels where I and the team stayed during the project:

A HUGE thank you to the staff at each of these hotels. Oh, and for you reading this, if you get the chance to visit any of these hotels I recommend them.

Wait, have you seen the documentary yet?

If not, here it is. Please watch, comment, and share. Let’s get this over 2 million views as fast as possible. Let’s get it to 10 million. Then 20 million. The more people we get to watch this documentary, the faster we can save the reefs. It’s such an important issue.

If you’ve already watched it, thank you. Please continue to spread the word. We’re talking about the very air we breathe.

One final thing about the documentary experience and I’ll get to trading…

If you read last week’s update you know I threw my back out three days before the premiere. There was editing left to be done. I could barely walk and at the premiere, I was hopped up on painkillers. It was brutal.

So, if you’re on an airplane and you have heavy luggage in the overhead compartment … be careful. Be meticulous. I wasn’t. I was only half awake after flying from Tokyo to Hawaii and I didn’t brace myself. My back got crunched.

Soon I’ll post a video on YouTube. It’s me presenting a webinar for Trading Challenge students and trying to trade with my back out. It’s about when NOT to trade. I’ll give you a hint now: I was slouched over, my back was killing me, and I was on painkillers.

You shouldn’t trade when you’re on painkillers. And you shouldn’t trade when you’re in pain. It messes with you. It messes with your trades. Not to mention, throwing my back out was the worst timing ever.

Trading lesson numero uno for this edition of the update: Don’t trade when you’re in pain and/or on painkillers.

Which leads me to…

Lessons From My Trades

Part of the reason why I and my top students show all our trades on Profitly is to give you an idea of what it takes. We don’t want you to copy us exactly. We want to show you what’s been working for us.

We also want to show you when we lose — and why. We want to be transparent about it. We give you a full and clear picture of the risks and rewards.

It’s the same here on the blog. I want you to look at what I’m trading and see my thought process. I want you to see it is possible to turn a small amount into a big amount over time through lots of little trades.* But it requires adaptation to the market.

(Note: it’s not easy. Trading involves risk. 90% of traders lose money. My goal is to help you lose as little as possible while you learn. It takes time and effort to be successful. It’s not guaranteed.)

This is super important — pay attention. It requires you to adapt to what works best for you. Your personality, strengths, and weaknesses all make a difference. My recent trading may not be exciting, but it’s meticulous. I focus on what I do best.

Predictive Technology Group Inc (OTCPK: PRED)

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PRED spiked after this press release announcing a collaboration with Thermo Fisher Scientific. (NYSE: TMO) Thermo Fisher Scientific is a $100 billion company.

This trade had some positives and some negatives. One positive was the news. That’s the kind of catalyst I like. Now take a look at the long-term chart:

PRED 1-year chart: nice multi-month upward trend

It’s a perfectly uptrending multi-month chart down off its highs — another positive. My thesis: it should bounce. But the volume was sooo weak. That was the negative. Even after a big partnership announcement the stock barely budged.

This chart shows where I made my trade.

PRED chart: June 19; 1-minute candlesticks; low volume spike

I took small profits. As I often do, I sold a little too soon. I’d hoped to sell in the low $5s but it was meeting resistance. Less than an hour later, it did get there but it couldn’t do much after that. It spiked three times and then faded when people realized it wasn’t going to break the morning highs. Notice the low trading volume — that’s the big negative for this trade.

Overall this is my kind of trade. While it didn’t get a big spike like I wanted, I focused on a pattern I like with a catalyst I like. The lack of liquidity kept it from being a perfect trade for me. I only made a small amount. But, I traded based on my strengths.

And now…

Questions from Students

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“Tim, what’s your best tip for avoiding study and trading burnout?”

As always, understand this is a marathon and not a sprint. Also, we’re in summer so remember summers are typically a little slower.

One of the reasons I travel so much and give time and energy to charity is to keep me from overtrading. I love travel and my charity work. But I also need something other than trading in my life.

You should have something else in your life. If you have a family or some other passion, don’t neglect them. Yes, study every day. Yes, put in the time and effort to develop the knowledge and skills necessary for success.

But don’t make trading the only thing in your life. Otherwise you’re just going to become a degenerate gambler like too many people. You’ll be trying to force trades and you’ll actually do worse.

Trading is counterintuitive. The more you want to trade, the worse you’ll do. You should NOT look forward to trading. Think of yourself as a retired trader. Only come into a trade out of retirement. Come into a trade when it’s so good that you’ll feel guilty missing it.

I know its a counterintuitive way of thinking about it, but it helps.

“When studying the past — including patterns and price action — how important is it to keep track of all the nuances?

Studying the past helps. You should know a pattern when you see it. But also know it’s not necessarily exact…

For example, right now morning dip buys aren’t working great. First green days aren’t working great. Shorting isn’t working great — a lot of shorts are getting squeezed.

So you have to recognize that sometimes patterns don’t work perfectly. That’s when you pull back. You trade with smaller position sizes — and sometimes you don’t trade at all.

Learn the patterns and keep studying. Over time, you’ll start to see the nuances and variations. But there’s no shortcut. You have to put in the time … over time. If you keep at it, you’ll gain experience and knowledge. But you can’t cheat success.

The question is: How bad do you want it? Are you willing to dedicate time every day for the next few years to learn what you need to learn? Remember, Tim Grittani — arguably, in my opinion, the BEST penny stock trader in the world — says he wasn’t consistently profitable his first 9 months.* And he’s incredible. So don’t think you’re going to match his time frame. You’re not. He’s exceptional.

All you can do is put in the time necessary to get there. Are you ready?

More Breaking News

If you’re ready, apply for the Trading Challenge right now.

Millionaire Mentor Market Wrap

That’s another update in the books.

Do yourself and the oxygen supply of the world a favor: share “50 Minutes to Save the World” right now. Go post it on one of your social media accounts. Do it even if you’ve already shared it. You never know who might see it this time. Every time someone new watches, it gains power.

Get inspired — not only about your future in trading, but also about changing the world.

Are you a trader? How does studying the past influence your trading? Newbie? Comment below with “I will study the past and I will focus on what works best for me.”


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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”