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Trading Lessons

My Top Trade Between Bites of Holiday Ham

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 12/26/2025 4 min read

The market was closed yesterday for Christmas. And that one-day pause might’ve created the most explosive trade opportunity of the year.

Every weekend there are information inefficiencies.

Traders check out early to get a jump on the weekend and the volume dries up. 

But while the crowd’s distracted, my students and I are already positioning for Monday’s madness.

The Friday afternoon fade isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a strategic consolidation. 

They’re sitting right below key breakout levels, waiting for Monday’s momentum. And with traders rushing back from their holiday hangovers next week … we could see the kind of surges that rewrite small accounts.

We’ve seen weekend runners all year long. But nothing like what’s brewing now. 

News catalysts are stacking alongside holiday information inefficiency. And when we get a combination of catalysts like this, it can spark huge supernovas.

This setup doesn’t happen every month … Or even every quarter.

These holiday-weekend plays can make a trader’s whole year.

The clock’s ticking. There are only a few hours left before this window closes.

This could be the biggest trade of 2025 — and if you miss it because you were still in “holiday mode,” you’ll be kicking yourself by Monday’s open.

Get focused. The pattern is setting up right now.

How It Works

Every week, as Friday afternoon rolls around, a large portion of traders start mentally checking out.

They’re heading into the weekend and they shut down their screens early. They’ll tune out the price action in the market, volume shrinks, and it creates a gap in market attention.

That’s the information inefficiency I talk about.

And while the crowd’s distracted, this setup is forming right in front of them.

Here’s how it works:

  • Half-engaged traders miss stock spikes on Friday afternoon.
  • Weekend scanners pick up these runners after Friday’s close.
  • Lazy traders enter positions over Saturday and Sunday outside market hours, piling up orders that hit on Monday’s open.
  • The result is a gap up as buy orders flood at the open.

The holidays amplify this effect.

Traders are even less focused. Travel plans distract their attention. Maybe traders plan to take the entire Friday off.

Fewer market participants on Friday means bigger moves for the strongest stocks into Monday.

The Biggest Trade of the Year

This isn’t some random theory …

This pattern has shown up repeatedly throughout 2025, often turning Friday consolidation into a Monday morning rocket.

Neonode Inc (NASDAQ: NEON) followed this exact weekend pattern earlier this year. I entered on a Friday afternoon as the price action lined up with the pattern, and by Monday morning my position was up 32%.

Get the trade details here.

Another strong example is Beyond Meat Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND). On Friday, October 17, the company announced a business update that was to come on Monday. I entered a position late that Friday afternoon as the price action aligned with the weekend setup.

By Monday morning, when the market reopened and pent-up buy pressure hit, BYND surged and I locked in a 66% gain.

Get the trade details here.

This afternoon I’m looking for the exact same trade setup.

And thanks to the holiday season, Monday’s spike could eclipse my trades on NEON and BYND …

Get all the details in my video below. And don’t be late this afternoon!

 

Cheers

*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”