Your alarm goes off. The smell of freshly brewed coffee gives you that first rush of energy. And for once, the morning isn’t chaos.
The kids are quiet. The commute is smooth.
You sit down at your desk with your watchlist pulled up and think: today’s the day.
The day my account trajectory changes forever.
The market opens. You’re scanning the biggest movers.
Then you see it: a stock already up nearly 100%, with multiple float rotations, and the pattern looks textbook.
You’ve studied this setup. You know this setup.
And the pullback comes right on cue.
You buy shares.
For about four glorious seconds, you’re a genius.
Then it drops.
You refresh the screen. It drops more.
Your stomach flip-flops. You tell yourself it’ll bounce.
It doesn’t.
Every tick lower feels personal, like the market reached through your monitor and grabbed your wallet right out of your hands.
You did everything right.
The right pattern. The right stock.
But you missed something crucial …
The Key Factor Behind This 100% Spike
Anyone who’s traded for more than five minutes has experienced this exact feeling…
But if you haven’t, let me share an example from February 19.
Rubico Inc. (RUBI) spiked during premarket and opened for regular hours near the highs, around a 100% spike.
The float was only 503,000 shares: well within our ideal range of 10 million shares or fewer.
And a cherry on top: the trading volume topped 80 million shares.
It had all the ingredients for a spike higher after the market opened for regular hours.
But the chart had different ideas…
Source: StocksToTrade
RUBI chart intraday, 1-minute candles.
After the first dip, it dipped again, and again, and again … and it never recovered.
My trading patterns keep our accounts safe: Cut losses quickly.
But there’s a crucial detail you’re missing…
The Best Setups Have THIS In Common
To catch the biggest moves, you have to wake up early for premarket hours (and stay late for after hours).
That’s when we see the strongest stock spikes.
• The chart can’t halt due to volatility.
• There isn’t as much retail-trading noise.
• And it’s when we see the most catalyst announcements.
RUBI gave us at least two breakout trade opportunities during premarket hours on February 19.
The third breakout attempt failed, but there was still room for gains if you bought during the earlier consolidation.
That’s the beauty of my trading patterns. Even when the setups fail, we can still get out with gains.
Source: StocksToTrade
RUBI chart intraday, 1-minute candles.
A regular-hours dip buy isn’t necessarily a bad trade…
You aren’t wrong about the pattern…
And you aren’t wrong about the stock…
You’re wrong about the clock.
The premarket version of that trade gave you two clean breakout opportunities. There was less noise and cleaner price action due to the time of day.
By the time regular hours opened, the easy money was already made. And in its wake was a crowded, noisy, fakeout-filled mess that destroyed traders who thought they were doing everything right.
They were. They just showed up too late.
And in this market…
Too Late = Unnecessary Losses
For your Monday Motivation: My millionaire students didn’t build their accounts by finding better stocks. They built them by learning when to trade stocks that were already exploding.
Wake up earlier. Stay up later. Study the premarket charts like your account depends on it…
Because it does.
The patterns are the same. The setups are the same. You already know what to look for.
Now you know when to look.
If you have any questions, email me at [email protected].
Cheers,
Tim SykesEditor, Tim Sykes Daily
