When you daydream, what kind of fantastical thoughts consume your mind? Do you ever think about figuring out how to make literal shit loads of money in the stock market? Let’s be honest. You probably do.
Steven Dux, who is originally from Chongqing, China, didn’t just dream about it, he took action and changed the course of his life.
During his first year of college, as a double major in environmental science and accounting, he realized that he didn’t want to get trapped into the rut of graduating with lots of student debt, getting a normal 9-5 day and living pay check to pay check until retiring in his 50s. So he started looking for a skill he could develop that would ultimately allow him to earn a lot of money. Since his parents are entrepreneurial with his dad selling real estate and his mom having a restaurant, he decided working for himself may be a path for him.
Many of today’s wealthy people come from the finance industry, so he decided to learn about the stock market. He taught himself how to trade by learning from every resource he could find online. He came across Tim Sykes and joined his Millionaire Challenge where Tim mentored him. Before long Steven started showing a lot of potential and some of Tim’s other students that became millionaires from scratch started mentoring him as well. He decided to risk his life savings of $27K to begin trading.
Once he picked up the systems and got into a routine, he became a trading machine. By all accounts, his personal discipline is exceptional. At first the gains were small, but as his account size grew, so did his winning trades. He also taught himself to exit losing trades very quickly to avoid large losses. The $27K soon became $2M within the last two years and he’s now made $800K just in the past two months.
Naturally, we had some questions.
BB: So you have turned $27,000 into $2 million in just two years. The obvious question is what is the biggest purchase you have made from your earnings?
Steven Dux: My biggest purchases have been my house and a $250K McLaren.
The next obvious question is how have you managed to see so much success when so many others try to day-trade and fail miserably?
It is all about learning from mistakes and being patient. Too many people go into trading wanting to make money quickly. Getting rich quick is not a reality in day trading. So to be successful quickly, you have to put in an equal amount of work to match the reward.
How many trades are you making daily and is there a certain type of trade that you normally stick to?
I typically make 1 trade a day. Normally 5 times a week. I tend to stay away from over-trading because that will cause me to make mistakes.
I also only stick to couple of patterns. I practice identifying these patterns over and over so when I see them I can easily recognize and quickly execute the trade.
Do you closely follow Tim Sykes’ teachings and from your experience is there a one-size fits all system that anyone can use to replicate the success you’re seeing?
Tim Sykes taught me initially how to trade, but now I don’t follow anyone as much. I learn from different people and take what’s good and leave the useless things behind. I use what I learn combined with my market experience.
There is a system for anyone to replicate the success I am seeing. But you have to put the hard work in. Just like any other career. It takes time and practice to be successful.
Do you close all your open trades each day and do you have a trading strategy for when this market eventually corrects itself?
I try to close all my open trades intraday. I don’t like holding long trades overnight. Penny stocks like to do offerings out of nowhere. If you get caught you will be down least 60 percent very quickly.
You’re making more money than I assume you ever would as an environmental science and accounting major… does that mean you will be sticking with day-trading for the foreseeable future? If not what is next for you?
That’s a big maybe to me because money isn’t my life goal. After I’ve made enough money then I will go do what I want. Likely use my engineering skills to help the world become a better place. But before all that, I will stick to trading until it’s time to retire.
You can find out more about Timothy Sykes by visiting his website and checking out his Instagram at @TimothySykes.