timothy sykes logo

Penny Stock Basics

Millionaire Mentor Update: How I Spoke My Truth and Created Some Controversy

Timothy SykesAvatar
Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 2/21/2023 10 min read

I recently spoke at a conference in Vancouver, B.C. at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. My topic: How to Choose Only the Best Investments. If you want to know my answer in far greater depth than I could give in a talk, apply for the Trading Challenge.

So …

I got heckled. This guy flipped out on me. You’ve gotta see it.

He said I was full of crap. It seemed like he was trying to come off as some kind of market vigilante. Then he started swearing and I think he got escorted out. I didn’t know who he was at the time (I’ve since learned who he is; do your own research), but all I could do was laugh.

“You’re full of s**t,” he said …

My answer: “I show 20 years of trading. I share everything. How is that full of s**t?”

Afterward, people told me not to take him seriously. (Why? Again, do your own research.) And they were also complimentary to me, saying, “You handled that really well.”

I just laugh at my haters. This is the beauty of being transparent online.

New Schools in Thailand and Foodie Adventures

Post image

Get my weekly watchlist, free

Sign up to jump start your trading education!

After Vancouver and the heckling incident, I flew to Thailand. We have two new schools opening here with my charity, Karmagawa.

I also did a whole food tour with some of the best foodies in the world. I had some amazing Thai food. I gained around 7 lbs. in 3 days — something like 2½ lbs. per day. Impressive, I know.

Before I tell you about my best trade of the week, I want to emphasize that I’m always looking for my next top student.** Everywhere. But there are NO lazy people allowed.

My Best Trade of the Week: Cronos Group, Inc (NASDAQ: CRON)

My best trade of the week was Cronos Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRON). I only made a few hundred dollars. I took roughly half the potential profits so it probably could have done a little better.** I had major jet lag but managed to stay awake and trade.

Which brings up a very important point before you have a look at the chart. This trade shows you can do this from anywhere. This is my classic morning panic pattern and it was a good one. OK, check out the chart:

CRON stock dip buy
CRON chart: classic morning panic dip-buy

I dip bought the morning panic — timed almost perfectly — with a goal of making 20-40 cents per share on the bounce. It’s a little higher priced stock than I like to trade, especially early in the year after I’ve rebalanced my account down to $12,000.

I took a small position of only 1500 shares. I was in at $14.47 and back out at $14.71 when the stock seemed to be having some trouble in the low $14.70s. It’s good to dip buy the first morning panic on a multi-day runner like this. It was only a 1.66% gain for a $360 profit.**

Let that sink in …

I played it safe by trading a pattern I like and know. I played it safe by getting out near the low end of my predetermined goal. Small gains add up over time. This is what it’s all about.

Set your plan, trade your plan, and cut losses quickly if things go wrong.

One more thing before I move on to my students…

I made a video lesson for this trade. It’s available to Trading Challenge students and Profit.ly subscribers. Also, big shout out to Mark Croock who is one of the Trading Challenge mentors. He alerted this trade in the Trading Challenge chat literally seconds before I did. Nice. One of the many reasons I love my students.

Which brings me to …

What My Students Did Last Week: See It All On Twitter

I love all the great tweets coming at me from students on Twitter!

Some of you are killing it on morning spikes like Boxlight Corporation (NASDAQ:BOXL). Take a look at the quick chart I made on this one. You see a huge morning spike followed the next two days by morning panics with a bounce.

BOXL stock chart
BOXL chart: big spike on Jan 23rd with morning panics next two days

Microbot Medical (NASDAQ: MBOT) was hot again, too. I talked about MBOT in last week’s question of the week. You can see the chart there.

The lesson to be learned is: Find your pattern. Whether it’s dip buying morning panics or breakouts …

… whatever it is, you’ve gotta test everything and you’ve gotta try everything.

It’s not just about the money you make, it’s about getting comfortable with a pattern and taking what the market will give you. Don’t feel like you always have to trade.

Sometimes the best trade is not a trade at all.

So, congratulations to my students who are studying like crazy to learn potentially life-changing skills.

(BTW, I made all the charts in this post with the most badass stock screener available anywhere,  StocksToTrade. I use it every day.)

More Breaking News

Question of the Week

“What’s the most common excuse you hear people say about why they can’t get ahead in the market?”

It’s not one excuse. There are a few I hear over and over again. Self-defeating excuses do nothing but hold you back. Here are the most common. I’ll give a thought or two on why they’re lame excuses you should toss out of your life right away.

Excuse #1: Not Enough Time

We all have 24 hours in a day and we all choose how to use those 24 hours. Before I get a bunch of haters saying “But, Tim, you don’t know what my life is like and what I have to go through …” Blah, blah, blah.

You have time to read this? You have access to the internet? You have a burning desire to get yourself in gear and learn? Drop this excuse from your life. Make time.

I work with my charities to build schools in places where children probably won’t get a decent education without the school getting built. They’re grateful for every opportunity. You have no excuse. Stop holding yourself back!

Excuse #2: I Don’t Know How to Learn

Are you serious?

Come on!

If you can read, be grateful you can read and get to work. Take notes. Make a study plan. Study, study, study. Watch my YouTube channel. Keep reading these posts. I almost feel like an idiot for answering this one. You know how to learn. Can you tie your shoes? You can learn.

Excuse #3: Don’t Know Where to Start

Let me make it easy for you …

Free guide on my blog: How to Trade Penny Stocks: Penny Stocks 101.

Inexpensive book written by student and badass tech dude Jamil Ben Alluch: The Complete Penny Stock Course.

12-hour guide updating my original 7-step framework: PennyStocking Framework Part Deux.

And the one to rule them all: Trading Challenge

Excuse obliterated. Study up.

Excuse #4: My Account is too Small

Stop. Holding. Yourself. Back.

You should start with a small account. You need to study, learn the patterns, and learn to trade with rules. You need to make a lot of small trades at first. You have to learn the discipline. The fastest way to become an ex-trader is to blow up your account.

I rebalance my account down to $12,000 every January so I’m forced to trade the way I teach my students to trade. In other words, my account is small for most of the year. My top student Tim Grittani started with $1,500 and now reports nearly $7.5 million in profits.**

And finally …

Excuse #5: It Takes too Long

Listen, this is not some get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not gonna happen overnight. You’ll definitely have to study.

I didn’t learn everything overnight! I didn’t even have all my trading rules in place until year 8 or 9. You must have patience. I still don’t know everything and I’m in year 20+. I’m still learning.

Here’s what I know:

It Gets Easier Over Time

Accumulated knowledge and experience is the answer. Not excuses. Get busy, study up, and learn so you have the chance of doing something amazing with your life. Maybe you’re already doing something amazing, I don’t know. But if you’re not, study.

Life Is Long

You don’t have to get this by tomorrow. But to get it at all you have to start. The sooner you start the sooner it will all make sense. Start today. No more excuses.

There’s Always Going to Be a Stock Market

Barring some crazy apocalyptic-world-changing-event …

… the stock market will go on.

You have time. Use your time wisely.

Anyway, wouldn’t you rather make enough money for one of those prepper bunkers? And have your bug-out bag ready? I don’t think anything like that’s gonna happen. I’m just saying there will always be a stock market and now’s the time to take advantage of it.

There Will Always Be Opportunities

We live in amazing times. The internet has changed everything and there are opportunities everywhere. I talked a little about this in my last weekly update.

The only question is, are you prepared to capitalize on the opportunities that come your way?

– Tim

Are you a trader or student trader? How will you take advantage of the lessons in this post? Let me know in the comments below. I love to hear from you!


How much has this post helped you?



Leave a reply

* 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”