Matt Monaco: From Hated Software Engineering Major to $3M+ Verified Sykes Millionaire

Matt Monaco was studying software engineering in 2017 — and he hated it. He discovered Tim Sykes online, joined the Sykes Trading Challenge, and started trading with approximately $2,000 while still in college. Crossed $1 million in cumulative profits in January 2021 during the GameStop short squeeze madness. Verified track record now exceeds $3 million on Profit.ly. Long-biased OTC small-cap specialist who pivoted away from short selling as the strategy got crowded. Runs To The Moon Report and Small Cap Rockets with his RIT college roommate (and fellow $1M+ verified trader) Bryce Tuohey.

Matt Monaco Started trading 2017 · $3M+ verified on Profit.ly · Founder, To The Moon Report & Small Cap Rockets Photo: StocksToTrade

The Snapshot

Matt Monaco is one of the most-cited modern Sykes Trading Challenge alumni — and one of the cleanest documented case studies on the structural value of methodological pivoting in response to changing market conditions. He started trading in 2017 with approximately $2,000 in capital while studying software engineering (a major he openly hated by his own admission), joined the Sykes Challenge after discovering Tim Sykes online, and built incremental skill across multiple years before the major breakthrough during the early-2021 retail trading boom. He crossed $1 million in cumulative verified profits in January 2021 during the GameStop short squeeze madness, and his verified Profit.ly track record now exceeds $3 million. Timothy Sykes

The structural distinctiveness of Monaco’s career is the deliberate methodological pivot from short selling to long-biased trading. He started his trading career shorting penny stock pump-and-dumps — the standard Sykes-community approach that had worked for Sykes himself, Tim Grittani, Roland Wolf, and Jack Kellogg through the 2010s. The strategy made structural sense (pump-and-dump penny stocks have predictable failure patterns that produce reliable short-side setups), but by the early 2020s the short-side methodology had gotten substantially crowded — too many traders chasing the same setups, with risk-reward shifting unfavorably as squeeze risk on small-caps increased. Monaco pivoted to long-biased trading and has continued to compound the verified track record through the methodology change. Timothy Sykes (7 Lessons)

For traders studying modern small-cap day trading — and particularly the structural value of methodology adaptation as market conditions change — Monaco is essential reading. He’s also one of the most-cited modern examples of the multi-trader peer relationship as a structural advantage: his RIT college roommate Bryce Tuohey is also a verified seven-figure Sykes Challenge alum (profiled elsewhere in this series), and the two co-founded the Beyond the PDT podcast, the To The Moon Report educational service, and the Small Cap Rockets chat room. The framework is part of our broader day trading coverage. To The Moon Report

Software Engineering Major to Sykes

Monaco’s path into trading was structurally consistent with the modern career-pivoter profile — but at a substantially earlier stage than most career-pivoter trader profiles. He was studying software engineering at college (specifically Rochester Institute of Technology, where his roommate was Bryce Tuohey, also profiled in this series), and by his own subsequent admission he hated the major. The structural problem wasn’t software engineering per se but the constraint of conventional employment trajectories — the pre-trading internships during college demonstrated that the salaried-software-engineer career path didn’t align with Monaco’s actual interests or temperament. StocksToTrade

The structural inflection point came in 2017 when Monaco came across Timothy Sykes online and decided he wanted to become a stock trader. The discovery was structurally consequential — it provided both methodology (Sykes’s documented penny-stock framework) and verification (Profit.ly’s track record platform that demonstrated the methodology actually produced results for committed practitioners). Monaco joined the Sykes Trading Challenge and started trading with $2,000 he had saved from side hustles while still in college, simultaneously pursuing the software engineering coursework that he hated. The dual-track approach — continuing the conventional career trajectory while building trading skill on the side — is structurally common among aspiring full-time traders and reflects the appropriate risk management of not abandoning income before demonstrating trading consistency. Timothy Sykes (10 Tips Video)

Joining the Challenge (2017)

The 2017 Sykes Challenge cohort was structurally well-positioned. Sykes’s methodology had been refined across more than a decade of teaching, the Profit.ly platform was mature enough to provide credible verification infrastructure, the video library was substantially complete, and the peer network of verified alumni (Tim Grittani, Roland Wolf, Mark Croock, Jack Kellogg) provided demonstrated proof that the methodology produced results. Monaco’s structural advantage relative to earlier Challenge cohorts was access to this mature infrastructure — though the actual skill development still required years of disciplined work. StocksToTrade

The early Challenge period involved the structural constraints typical of student traders. The Pattern Day Trader (PDT) rule restricts day trading on accounts under $25,000, which means Monaco’s $2,000 starting account couldn’t execute the rapid intraday trading that the broader methodology emphasized. The constraint forced focus on multi-day swing setups and careful position sizing rather than the high-frequency intraday execution that more-capitalized students pursued. The structural insight is that small-account constraints aren’t necessarily methodology disadvantages — they often force the kind of disciplined position sizing and patient setup selection that produces better long-term outcomes than aggressive intraday execution with larger capital. The Beyond the PDT podcast Monaco subsequently launched with Tuohey was named explicitly for this dynamic. Timothy Sykes

January 2021 Million Milestone

Monaco crossed the $1 million cumulative profit milestone in January 2021 — precisely during the GameStop short squeeze that briefly dominated global financial media attention and produced extreme volatility in the broader small-cap and meme-stock universe. The structural timing was advantageous but not coincidental: Monaco had been disciplined through the multi-year skill development period, and the January 2021 retail trading volatility produced exactly the kind of high-volatility small-cap environment that his refined methodology could capitalize on with structurally appropriate position sizing. Timothy Sykes

The structural lesson from the January 2021 milestone is the importance of being prepared when favorable conditions emerge. Most retail traders during the GameStop squeeze either missed the opportunity entirely (no methodology to recognize the setup) or blew up accounts (no methodology to size positions appropriately for the extreme volatility). Monaco was structurally prepared because of the multi-year prior work — when the favorable conditions emerged, the methodology was ready to capitalize without requiring development under pressure. The principle generalizes — favorable market conditions reward traders who prepared during the prior less-favorable periods rather than traders who develop methodology in response to currently visible opportunities. To The Moon Report

OTC Panic Dip Buys and Breakouts

Monaco’s articulated methodology centers on long-biased trading of “sketchy, volatile OTC stocks” with two primary patterns. Panic dip buys — entering long on OTC and small-cap stocks that have experienced sudden intraday declines (typically 20-40% panic moves) but maintain underlying structural strength suggesting the panic is overdone. Breakouts — entering long on stocks breaking above multi-day resistance levels with confirming volume, anticipating continuation of the underlying momentum. The structural focus on OTC stocks (rather than NYSE/Nasdaq-listed small-caps) reflects Monaco’s preference for the wider volatility and structurally more frequent setup occurrence that OTC markets provide. StocksToTrade

The structural risk management framework Monaco emphasizes is direct and explicit: cut losses quickly. He has consistently identified this as his #1 trading rule across multiple podcast appearances and educational content — “If your plan doesn’t work out and you’re in the red, get out. Cut it — it’s that simple. NEVER hold and hope.” The framework is structurally similar to what Tim Bohen teaches at StocksToTrade and what Jack Kellogg, Roland Wolf, and Tim Grittani all emphasize as the foundational risk management principle. The consistency across multiple verified Sykes Challenge alumni isn’t coincidence — it’s the methodological principle that distinguishes durable seven-figure careers from one-hit-wonder performances. Timothy Sykes (Cut Losses Quickly)

Why Matt Stopped Shorting

One of the most structurally instructive elements of Monaco’s career is the deliberate methodological pivot from short selling to long-biased trading. He started his trading career shorting penny stock pump-and-dumps because the strategy made structural sense — the companies were pure pump-and-dumps, the failure patterns were predictable, and the methodology had produced verified seven-figure outcomes for prior Sykes Challenge alumni (Tim Grittani at $14M+, Roland Wolf at $8M+, Jack Kellogg at $10M+). Timothy Sykes

The structural problem that emerged by the early 2020s was crowding. Too many traders had learned the same short methodology, which produced two adverse effects on risk-reward. First, the setups themselves became harder to execute as the short-side liquidity (share borrows) became more competitive and more expensive. Second, the structural squeeze risk on small-cap shorts increased substantially — the GameStop squeeze of January 2021 was the most-cited example but the dynamic affected the broader small-cap short universe. Monaco’s response was to pivot — explicitly stopping the short-side focus and concentrating on long-biased trading on the same universe of OTC and small-cap momentum stocks. Timothy Sykes (7 Lessons)

To The Moon Report and Small Cap Rockets

Following the January 2021 millionaire milestone, Monaco transitioned increasingly into the educator role within the Sykes ecosystem. Alongside his college roommate Bryce Tuohey, he co-founded To The Moon Report — a paid educational service that publishes regular trading commentary, mentorship videos, and chart analysis — and Small Cap Rockets, the StocksToTrade chat room where the two of them alert setups and provide daily mentorship along with John Papa. The combined infrastructure produces substantial revenue independent of personal trading and creates the structural diversification that most pure traders lack. To The Moon Report

The structural significance of the Monaco-Tuohey partnership is that both partners are verified seven-figure Sykes Challenge alumni — Monaco at $3M+ verified and Tuohey at $1M+ verified — providing the kind of credentialed-mentor combination that distinguishes the To The Moon Report from competing educational services where the educators have not personally demonstrated equivalent track records. The combined verified profits across both partners exceed $4 million as of recent updates, making the partnership one of the most-credentialed modern small-cap day trading educational ventures. StocksToTrade

What Traders Can Actually Learn From This

The first lesson from Monaco’s career is the structural value of being prepared when favorable conditions emerge rather than trying to develop methodology in response to current conditions. He had been disciplined through the multi-year skill development period from 2017-2020, which meant that when the January 2021 GameStop squeeze produced extreme retail-trading volatility, his methodology was ready to capitalize. Most retail traders during that period either missed the opportunity (no methodology to recognize it) or blew up accounts (no methodology to size positions appropriately). The principle generalizes — favorable market conditions reward preparation, not improvisation.

The second lesson is the structural value of methodology pivoting in response to crowding. Monaco’s deliberate switch from short selling to long-biased trading is one of the cleanest modern examples of methodology evolution. Strategies that worked in one period may produce structurally worse risk-reward in subsequent periods as more practitioners adopt them. The retail-trader implication is that methodology evaluation should be ongoing rather than one-time — and willingness to pivot away from previously-successful strategies as crowding develops is structurally as important as the initial methodology development.

The third lesson is the structural value of peer relationships in trader development. Monaco and Tuohey were college roommates at RIT who started trading around the same time, both joined the Sykes Challenge, both achieved verified seven-figure status, and now run educational ventures together. The peer relationship provided structural advantages that solo traders typically lack — direct accountability (impossible to abandon methodology when your roommate is doing the work), shared methodology development (each could learn from the other’s setups and mistakes), and post-success collaboration on educational ventures. For aspiring traders, the principle generalizes — finding genuine peers who are simultaneously developing the same methodology produces structurally better outcomes than developing methodology in isolation. Our broader trading education coverage addresses related questions of peer development.

Frequently Asked Questions

Disclosure: This article is editorial and contains no affiliate links. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Matt Monaco’s $3+ million in lifetime trading profits is documented through Profit.ly, the independent third-party trade-verification platform. The Sykes Trading Challenge and To The Moon Report are paid educational programs; most participants do not become consistently profitable traders. Day trading carries substantial risk of loss, the Pattern Day Trader rule restricts day trading on accounts under $25,000, and most retail day traders lose money. Trading OTC and small-cap stocks carries additional structural risks including manipulation, low liquidity, and sudden volatility. Individual results vary substantially; Monaco’s outcomes — including the January 2021 milestone during the GameStop short squeeze — are not representative of typical Trading Challenge participant results.