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Promoters- Tim Sykes Penny Stock Trader

How To Avoid Being A Victim Of Promoter Pumps

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 7/20/2023 5 min read

Last week, the ticker symbol HCTI ran by more than 200%…going from a low of $3 to a high of $10.89 in less than 24 hours…

The company announced it was launching a ransomware initiative aimed at protection and prevention for healthcare providers.

Hardly game-changing news…

So what triggered such a massive move?

A well-calculated promoter pump.

You see, several publicly traded small-cap companies use promoters to bring awareness to their company…aka pump their stock up.

There’s a lot of money involved.

And tons of opportunities in trading promoted stocks…

But if you don’t know how the game is played, the results can be devastating.

That’s why I’m going to share with you my best tips on how to avoid being a victim of a promoter pump…

How Promoters Operate

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Promoters use Discord, chat rooms, email lists, Whatsapp groups, Telegram, and even old-school mailers to get their message out.

These hired guns get paid to write marketing pieces that are masked to look like research. They are highly one-sided and only focus on the company’s positive aspects.

For their efforts, they receive large sums of money…they can also be compensated in shares…and sometimes both.

While it all sounds harmless…

Here’s where it gets shady.

The reason why some small-cap companies hire promoters to pump their stock is because they need money.

Most of these companies are hemorrhaging cash.

So they’ll like to pump up the stock so they can then later make a stock offering.

By issuing more shares, they can generate cash for their business.

However, it’s dilutive to existing shareholders.

And in many cases, it destroys the stock.

How It Works

On July 16th, promoters pushed the ticker symbol GNPX…

This was done to bring awareness to the stock and get amateur traders to FOMO into the symbol.

Source: StocksToTrade

Then on July 18th, the company released a statement that they signed an exclusive license to additional diabetes technology with the University of Pittsburgh.

Sounds bullish, right?

And the timing, it’s perfect, right?

Imagine not being knowledgeable and you start to receive messages about a stock…so you put it on your watchlist…then you hear news about the stock that sounds bullish.

For the newbie, it’s to get suckered into the stock.

And I’m sure some did.

But you know what?

The NEXT DAY…GNPX announced a $7.5 million registered direct offering priced at the market under Nasdaq rules.

And just like that it dropped nearly 20%…

More Breaking News

The Game Has Gotten Harder

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Early in my career, I would short the living daylights of promoted stocks.

And I would make tons of money doing it.

However, a couple of things happened.

One, I started receiving death threats.

Second, too many traders adopted the strategy.

Why is that bad?

Because it skewed the risk vs. reward.

For example, most of these promoted stocks will crash after the campaign is over…

However, we don’t know when.

That’s why we are seeing so many short-sellers get squeezed.

Traders with big bank accounts are playing the other side and squeezing the heck out of shorts.

That’s why shorting is a very risky business.

And something I don’t recommend to new traders or ones with small accounts.

Just one bad trade can wipe out years of progress.

That’s why I often say that short-sellers are the new promoters.

Last Word

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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”