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The Dirty Secret Twitter Traders Don’t Tell You

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 3/2/2023 8 min read

The keyboard warriors on Twitter love doctoring images and flashing big wins.

They all have two things in common.

First, they have the uncanny ability to pick tops and bottoms.

Second, they never seem to have losses.

Amazing right?

These clowns want you to think that trading is the most exciting thing since sliced bread.

And that making money in the markets is so easy.

If their “trading system” is truly foolproof, where are the success stories to prove it?

Meanwhile, yours truly has helped over 30 students become millionaire traders.

And if you want to know the cold hard truth about making it… not that fake stuff you see on Twitter…

My trading last Monday summed up what you can expect most of the time…

What They Don’t Tell You About Trading

Tim Sykes reviews his top penny stocks list for February 28, 2022
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Ahh…

The life of a trader.

You can work from anywhere in the world and create your own hours without limits on how much money you can make.

And while that’s all true.

There’s one thing you’ve got to understand if you want any chance of making it in this game.

You see, there are approximately 252 trading days in the year.

Most newbies who get into trading hear about the success stories and want to make money immediately.

But it takes time to develop your skills.

My top students, Tim Grittani and Jack Kellogg, who have made 8 figures each in their trading career, made a combined -$2,600 in year one.

Several of my other millionaire students didn’t even make money in year two.

But let’s say you’ve invested the time to learn the patterns, catalysts, setups, and how to put together a trading plan and manage risk…

You’ve only won half the battle.

You see, there’s not much going on in the market most of the time. And that’s something those Twitter traders don’t tell you.

Once you’ve developed your skills, trading is all mental.

While it might sound easy on the surface, it’s NOT.

You’ve got to war with yourself, fight off temptation constantly, and stay disciplined and patient.

My trading last Monday was full BLEHHHH.

Are You Ready For BLEHHHH Trading?

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I come to every trading session prepared.

I have a list of stocks I’m watching and ideas for how to play them.

However, the market doesn’t care about that.

And sometimes, what I think will happen never materializes.

Most of the time, I’m patient and wait for the ideal setups.

But with more than 250 trading days in the year, I’m bound to slip up and take trades I have no business being involved in.

It doesn’t make me a bad trader…it makes me human.

Monday was a classic example of it.

The stock dropped 50% from Friday’s high… And it dipped early Monday morning. So I decided to buy the dip because this stock has shown me that it bounces off sharp sell-offs.

I bought in at $0.019.

However, the bounce was weak, and the price action looked terrible. So I decided to play it safe and lock in a small profit, getting out at $0.0215.

Nothing to write home about.

And while I didn’t lose money on this trade, I was so focused on it I missed a better opportunity in the ticker symbol GDVM. 

This would have been a better dip buy play for me if I took it.

I knew that this stock had the potential to bounce because it made a similar move last Friday.

However, I completely missed the play because all my attention was on FAGI. 

Lesson: Focus on plays that will give you the best opportunity to make money. Taking setups that aren’t optimal makes it harder for you to profit and takes your focus away from other plays that can potentially give you better results. 

I then jumped into the ticker symbol EPAZ. 

There was a breaking news alert regarding the company’s drone and how it will be upgrading its AI technology. If you’ve been following the markets, then you know that AI has been the hottest sector in 2023. And we’ve seen several stocks pop off on AI-related headlines.

I also knew that the stock was a recent runner which gave me further confidence in the trade.

But after the press release, the stock didn’t move much. I gave it plenty of time, thinking I might have been early on it, but it still didn’t do anything.

So I decided to cut my losses.

I’m actually proud of how I traded this because I wasn’t stubborn and disciplined enough to take a small loss.

My third trade of the day was in the ticker symbol OCEA.

This was a speculative dip buy on a recent spiker stock. This was a forced trade for me and not an ideal setup.

No bounce came, so I decided to cut losses. Again, this was a small loss for me. Many newbie traders will hold onto a losing trade in hopes it breaks even. And that’s how you turn a bad trade into an awful trade.

So far, I’ve put on three trades and have small losses to show for them.

Not wanting to close the day down, I took a stab at a fourth trade.

This was in the ticker symbol SIDU. 

It has a solid catalyst, a space deal filing. And my thinking was a press release was on the way. Space-related headlines are the second hottest catalysts behind AI at the moment.

So I decided to buy on a dip off the highs.

This one actually would have been a solid trade. But I placed this trade while waiting for a taxi. And because my schedule was hectic, I decided to take it off early.

I ended up taking a small profit from it.

But when it was all said and done…I lost $1.50 on Monday.

Uneventful to say the least.

But that’s what trading is a lot of time.

You have to fight with yourself not to do dumb things because you won’t get awesome opportunities each day.

Most newbie traders want to make money right away. So they find themselves overtrading and losing money fast.

I made some foolish decisions on Monday, but I was able to button up my losses fairly quickly.

Trading can be mentally draining. That’s why being selective is so important. On Monday, I tried to create something out of nothing, and my results show it.

I’m experienced enough not to be stubborn and cut losses quickly. Most newbie traders aren’t, and that’s why trading as I did on Monday can be dangerous for them.

Unlike the traders you see on Twitter, I’m not afraid to show you the good, bad, and ugly.

If you’re in trading for the long haul…be prepared to have some BLEHHHH trading days.


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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”