Social media is filled with merchants who “made it.”
Faceless accounts that brag about positive factors, photographs of yachts above bios that tote fantastical cryptocurrency predictions.
They make it seem like everybody’s profitable. And even worse, it’s a painful reminder that you simply’re not profitable…
I’m right here to set the document straight.
Each few months, the market exposes a brutal reminder of the carnage that we don’t see on social media. The losses that occur behind closed doorways.
Within the final week of 2025, that reminder got here within the type of a catastrophic $50 million wipeout.
Make no mistake, a number of merchants misplaced their complete life financial savings. Considered one of them even opened a GoFundMe to try to recoup the losses.
I’ve warned merchants about these dangers for years.
While you observe a self-declared “guru” who guarantees simple cash and five-minute workdays, you’re not buying and selling. You’re playing your future.
And the home all the time wins.
I can’t inform you what number of merchants have come to me saying the identical factor:
“Tim, I want I’d discovered your course of sooner. I believed the hype on social media. I blew up my complete account.”
It’s all the time the identical story:
• They thought they’d cracked the code.
• They thought their technique was protected.
• They thought the danger was small. Till it wasn’t.
Don’t make the identical mistake I’ve seen numerous instances.
Sadly, this message received’t attain everybody. However hopefully I’ll save just a few of you from a street to catastrophe.
That is the story of how $50 million evaporated in just a few days. And the lesson each dealer must study earlier than it occurs to them.
The Newest Implosion
In late December 2025, the market uncovered one more self-proclaimed buying and selling genius.
His title is David Chau, however on-line he goes by “Captain Condor.”
Chau ran a non-public group of greater than a thousand merchants who paid over $5,000 a 12 months to observe his “can’t-miss” technique.
On daily basis, he and his followers guess on short-term choices contracts tied to the S&P 500. The type that expires inside hours, often known as 0DTEs.
The trades regarded protected on the floor. For months, they produced small, regular wins. Chau bragged concerning the consistency on podcasts and social media. His followers believed he’d cracked the code.
Behind the scenes, he was utilizing a Martingale system, doubling down after every loss to assist get better shortly.
Sure, that method works … Till it doesn’t.
On Christmas Eve 2025, the market hit document highs, thwarting Chau’s final large guess in opposition to the market.
Greater than $50 million vanished in days. Some merchants misplaced their life financial savings. One opened a GoFundMe simply to pay payments.
Have a look at the put up beneath:

And identical to that, one other “guru” was uncovered for what he actually is: A gambler dressed as a mentor.
Sick-equipped merchants implode like this each few weeks. However often the story doesn’t play out on the grand stage.
So how do you shield your self from the subsequent Captain Condor? How do you construct actual consistency as a substitute of chasing simple earnings?
That’s the place my course of is available in.
It’s constructed on actual commerce patterns, preparation, and correct threat administration (no doubling, tripling, quadrupling down).
Let me present you precisely the way it works.
A Actual Buying and selling Course of
Captain Condor’s followers weren’t unfortunate.
Issues like this occur day by day out there. They’re not the final to observe a faux guru.
Market wizards promise returns for his or her followers. They may also have a few months of a monitor document to again it up. However the finish result’s all the time the identical.
Full annihilation.
The distinction between my course of and the Condor’s is identical distinction between playing and buying and selling.
The concept of doubling right down to recoup a loss — that’s a flawed mindset.
Losses are a part of the method out there. We don’t need to be afraid of them, we simply have to regulate them.
Chau’s Martingale system operates underneath two incorrect assumptions:
1. I’m proper, the market is flawed.
2. This loss is dangerous, I’ve to erase it straight away.
Continuously doubling down on the identical place after a loss invitations the thought of eventual supremacy over the market. Merchants suppose their thesis is right, and so they’re prepared to die on that hill.
Not solely that, they’re emotionally distraught after a loss. They usually’re searching for a solution to reverse it on the subsequent commerce.
1. I don’t double down. I perceive that generally I’ll get it flawed.
2. Losses aren’t dangerous. It’s pure to lose whereas buying and selling.
These are important components within the framework that I’ve traded for over 20 years. And it’s the identical course of that’s already helped greater than 40 college students grow to be verified millionaires.
Not by luck, not by following my commerce alerts blindly, however with self-discipline. They discovered the principles, caught to the system, and constructed their accounts step-by-step.
Plus, we’ve to acknowledge one other aspect of this argument …
You don’t need to commerce in any respect. Buying and selling isn’t for everybody.
However those that do commerce, do it the appropriate manner. Do it with a plan that limits your threat and retains you within the recreation lengthy sufficient to truly discover ways to win with self-sufficiency.
Hopefully this will get by means of to a few of you…
Cease chasing “simple cash” setups.
As a result of finally, that cash will movement out of your account simply as simply because it flowed in.
When you’ve got any questions, e mail me at SykesDaily@BanyanHill.com.
Cheers,

Tim Sykes
Editor, Tim Sykes Day by day

