Timothy Sykes the psychic detective of investing
There comes a time when a retard can find a chance to shine, in this case I’ll be aiming at the Rich Ass Jew (RAJ). Raj is better known as Timothy Sykes. He’s a D-class celebrity. Word is that not even Kathy Griffin give him the time of day. So will I?
Sure I will, right now it’s 7:30 EST Tim.
Timothy is joining the VO, a small but growing community of stock market traders. The common connection with all of the VO has been that nobody pretended to be a milionaire while living in near poverty conditions. Along comes Timothy “Public Housing” Sykes.
Timothy Sykes the Psychic Detective of Swindling Investments
There’s probably too much information available about most people on the Internet, and Timothy is no exception. After running a quick search in order to learn more about the new VO competition, I found what is reported to be Timothy’s home address. Since I don’t know how to send mail using the postal service, I won’t be sending a non-electronic Christmas card, but if you are so interested in doing so, Timothy would probably appreciate it (he’ll use it to light his menorah).
Because of my introverted ways, I’m not able to send an email to Timothy directly (sykes777@yahoo.com) in order to show him how much I respect his ability to concoct a story on the fly and make small changes to it while going along. I have read and heard that Sykes started with his Bar Mitzvah money which has been quoted as being $12,000 an $12,415 and $14,000. Whatever the amount, the honest truth is that his family has a lot of rich friends. And what does a preppy kid do when his parents and friends are wealthy? Exactly, he borrows money.
Lifestyles of the not so rich and soon to be indicted… Sadly from one jew to another Tim don’t just be another goya who lies about money.
Sykes started a hedge fund which made so much money, that there’s no records or information about it. That’s impressive. Even the government’s black helicopter division has fewer secrets. Have no fear though if he loses all of his relatives money he can just throw another Bar Mitzvah - he’s lied about everything else so why not his age.
If there were an award for having a world class ego and a pathological need to lie Timothy Sykes would be my hero. You can visit his myspace page at Rich Ass Jew
Additionally if you are in the mood for some creative writing or just want to follow his friends and family seeing their life savings squandered in the saddest form of Amway pyramid schemes you can visit his blog here: timothysykes.com
34 Responses to “Timothy Sykes the psychic detective of investing”
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Allen Taylor
Hmmm, I don’t think I could have said it any better myself. Have to give him credit for his marketing prowless, but he is no doubt full of ****. Can’t understand why DT would allow him into the VO ($$$ perhaps)?
Timothy Sykes gave me herpes, but to his credit he does call every once and a while…
Glad to see you proving my point about how many idiots there are on Wall Street! Check my blog later today to understand why I really think you’re a retard, here’s s a sneak preview:
1. Thanks for taking a picture of my parents home (I live in NYC), you proved we have no rich friends!
2. My record shattering returns are all audited as are my fund’s returns when I was the #1 ranked short bias hedge fund manager 2003-2006
3. You even got my email wrong, it’s tim@timothysykes.com
I feel kinda bad, maybe you really a retard? We’re not supposed to pick on retards, right?
Anyone is allowed into the VO after paying me a $10,000 “application fee.”
-DT
DT, what gives with charging me $20k?
[...] is hugely informational, somewhat boring and quite accurate. The second, by a retard (seriously), check it out, single-handedly proves my point that there are tons of idiots on Wall Street (lacking basic [...]
This is by far one of the most on point commentaries I have read on this guy.
He is in desperate need for some humble pie. I am sure he will get some soon. The only people that find him entertaining are the 20 year old frat boy types that have yet to grow up.
Tim to pay your dues Timmay your luck has run out you are not going to change the world.
Get a real job and learn the business.
Hahahhaha - check this oot: http://www.timothysykes.com/2008/02/05/timothy-sykes-refutes-some-blatant-lies-typical-wall-street-bs/
BUST!
His response…
Wow… If you don’t believe me buy my book??? Wow that’s just amazing, sounds a little cult-ish.
Michael,
I charged you more because you’re a retard.
-DT
Hold on I read the book, I was wrong Tim is my master and I have changed my life. Going to the seminar, buying the book, the video, the energy drinks, and the full membership was just amazing. I recommend to anyone to follow Tim wherever he may go…
Retardtrader.com lives up to their name anyone that believes this is retarded. The article is completely false go research tim sykes for the real info. Don’t trust this retarded article.
Tim Sykes is a b.s. artist, I can’t believe anyone listens to this guy…
kris, if this site “lives” up to their name, they would be trading retards.
Timothy Sykes has a proven record but people only seem to gloss over the good parts. This article might not be totally accurate but it is entertaining.
Go retards!
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Norman Lunden Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anonymous Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“I think that someone making $2 million in the stock market by age 22 is a news worthy story.”
$2 million? His claim started out as $1.2 million. Then it became $1.6 million. Now it’s $2 million. But who cares about facts and figures, right? You are pointing distressed college students towards a dishonest, sleazy, 27 year old, washed up day trader who is now dispensing highly imprudent financial advice, in order to gets these students “interested in investing.” … It seems the ends always justify the means at Young Money. But even the ends in this case are highly questionable. A naive student reading this magazine is not going to go seek out sensible financial advice, instead he is going go buy Timothy Sykes’s day trading DVD and start gambling on illiquid penny stocks with his student loan money in the hopes of making $2 million….
Steve Cohen Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I read Sykes book and it is rather boring…yes he is very honest….but that doesnt make it good/interesting. It’s like a baseball player who bats .150 writing a book on why he can’t hit…..who wants to read that?
Who is Sykes trying to pedal that crappy DVD to? Hopefully not the inexperienced people he says that are the target audience for the book. That would be leading new traders off of a cliff. BEWARE: Sykes has gone from failed hedge fund manager to cheesy snake oil book/dvd salesman.
IF Sykes had any real belief in his trading strategies then:
1) His hedge fund would still be open. (Instead it closed with a loss -37% since Jan2006, and returned an overall return of less than 1%/yr since 2003!)
2) He would still be trading his strategies in the fund. (Instead he wants to make money selling book/dvd to newbies/suckers).
3) In the case where he honestly did not trust his own discipline, then he could hire a REAL trader to properly execute the strategies. (Instead he just quit).
It’s simple, Sykes put your money where your mouth is. Do NOT take advantage of newbies and suckers by selling garbage book/dvd.
Sykes Be Honest: Tell everybody that even your family no longer trusts you to manage their money!! That fact defines you as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Gerard Alexander Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’ve been following Tim’s blossoming story with great interest and I feel compelled to answer his critics. They really should read the book because he details all his gains on a trade-by-trade basis and ti truly is inspirational. By my calculations, he does make $2 million (the $1.2 million is after-tax). His short recommendation on PRXI was dead on and yes, it appears he did post on message boards afterwards. But, that’s not against the law–especially since he’s a private citizen now, not a hedge fund manager.
So, Tim, keep up the great work, don’t listen to these jealous people, you’re an inspirations to us all!
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Just got done with the book, it’s an amazing read. I discovered the book from this review:
http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/how_to_expose_the_hedge_fund_industry_write_a_book_and_shut_yours_down.php
and was not let down. Boy Tim’s story really does seem to get people riled up
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was neutral on Timothy until I read his post and comments on elitetrader.com. I understand now why so many people dislike him. People respect you not because you are successful or failed in trading, people respect you if you are honest, down to earth and speak from your heart. Timothy put himself where he definitely not belong: by showing his knowledge on trading, starting some business plan to sale his trading ideas and has absolute no good record to back it up in recent years. As a trader in a trader’s community, I felt the same way as everyone else that his is not likeable at all. Who like a person talk all the time, showing off, but cannot do anything to back it up. Doesn’t matter in what place or profession, everyone try to get away from people like that. But he just keep on spamming on elitetrader.com over and over, it is like a clown try to catch your attention again and again, and that makes people on elitetrader.com hate him from dislike him so much.
Bruce Freedman Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sykes book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe trader. The book never hooked me. I struggled to get through each chapter.
Sykes horrible book is overhyped and embarrassingly bad! There have been so many other blowouts, and unlike Sykes many are actually interesting like Hunt brothers, LTCM, Livermore etc.
There is nothing special about Sykes story and his Hedge Fund failure! Moreover, Sykes book is not a story of someone WHO LOST IT ALL and had GUTS TO carry on and make it all back again.
ONCE Sykes lost his money, he just changed professions…haha….
What a FIGHTER!?..haha. Book is not worth $20 !!
Sebastian Berk Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I can’t imagine anyone being jealous of Tim unless they are living in a third world country and suffering from a terminal disease. Yea, his PRXI call was pure genius. He shorted at 14 and covered at 13 and change. Wow, a regular rocket surgeon. No wonder, he has to resort to selling books, that he self publishes. Anyway, I really wouldn’t care about Tim, if he was only a failed trader with a bad book and a worthless trading course. There are plenty of guys like that around. What is most annoying about him his is arrogance and constant spamming. Every time, some guy has that he sent a free book to reviews it, we have to hear about it on every trading website. It is endless. He is so insecure, having to respond to every random comment on the web, even if its not directed at him or seeking his opinion. Let me ask you this, if you were confident in your product, would you attack every random critic, doubtful. He also thinks that by being a failure, he has something to teach. He couldn’t make him self a good trader, but he can make you one, for a small fee of course.
Dave Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a guy who is now peddling a DVD on how to trade. One needs to ask themself if he has such great stock picking skills then why doesn’t his family and friends give him some money to trade? He’s claimed that they are already invested with him but have incurred losses from his investment in CYGT.PK (a company trading on pink sheets). One would think that if his trading skills are so sound (and profitable) then investors sitting on losses would be more than happy to give money so that the trader could make profits to offset their losses they’re sitting on.
Bottom line is that his trading skills have likely not adapted to the changing market — something any successful trader is able to do. Thus, it appears as if his means of making money in the markets have reverted to selling a DVD. Those that “can” (trade), do.
I suspect a year from now people will be saying “Tim who”. His 15 minutes of fame will have vanished as quickly as they came about.
Moron Detector Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I saw Tim on CNBC, when they were having their trading contest. He was asked to recommend a stock. So Tim says, I like XYZ. The interviewer asked why, and Tim said, I like the chart. Interviewer asked but why do you like the chart. To which Tim responded, just look at it, its going up, its a beautiful chart. It stuck in my mind. If you have the urge to buy his book, just take $20 out of your pocket and burn it. It’s much quicker and won’t scar you mentally.
Howard Kaplan Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Ross Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I concur with the negative commentors above. HE PRESENTS HIMSELF AS SOMEONE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS HELPING NEWER TRADERS FIND PROFIT, BUT HE USES FALSE ALIASES, LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH AND CONSTANTLY COMES OFF AS SOMEONE WHO IS MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SELLING HIS WARES, WHETHER OR NOT IT DROWNS NEW TRADERS.
Can you say, “parasite?”
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think we can sum it up like this: everyone like people who do more, talk less, not vice versa. Have we see any top trader or investor keep posting on forum every day for every article mention about him/her? No, but we have this guy who is like bottom amature trader keep posting like a old cheap whore consistantly flashing something that cause everyone to throw up.
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Just saw this on elitetrader.com, posted from Tim:
Daniel,
Timothy Sykes is a con artist. His knowledge of capital markets could be written on a post-it note (the small kind). If you have half a million college students day trading during a bubble market, then at least one will turn $12,000 into $1 million. Now, if you admire dumb luck then that’s your business. But it is highly irresponsible to present this dart throwing monkey as someone who should be dispensing financial advice to financially distressed college student, as you have done. You ****** up in your role as Managing Editor and now you are trying to control the damage by rationalizing your poor decision on your blog.
LOL Your statements keep getting more ridiculous. Did I con the DJ Newswire into calling my book “part Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”? Did I con MOJO to play my TV show 800 times? Did I con thousands of people into emailing me for more information?
Your whole thesis is based around your misguided assumption that i only made money in the bubble. I don’t know how you forget that I made hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Yes, 2006 wiped out my 03,04,05 gains–deal with it!
Seriously dude, whats wrong with you? All the media that feature me read my book and they like it. It’s that simple. You’re fighting a losing battle here buddy, probly because you don’t have all the info. Like a trader who’s short a stock that just keeps rising. Buy to cover! Buy to cover!
S.C. Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Sykes Be Honest:
Everybody knows that even Sykes own family no longer trusts him to manage their money!! That fact defines Sykes as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Beware: newbies and suckers avoid Sykes garbage book/dvd.
Abe Rosenberg Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Mr Sykes:
I understand why your family does not trust your money management, and I know you need to now be a book/dvd salesman to make money. However, I have to make a few points here from someone with Wall Street experience, not more than most but enough to make comments about your failures and “teachings” to newbies:
1. The SEC does not shackle or censor the industry. Mary and John Smith, the average retail investor out there does not have the discretionary dollars or financial know how to invest in hedge funds. The main reason for many rules and restrictions in the laws is that due to the risky and non-public nature of hedge funds, the average investor should be prevented from putting their meager investment dollars in there just to see it get blown up. The rich are either very sophisticated or have the money to afford fancy financial managers to due the due diligence for them if they wish to put money into hedge funds. This is not the class the SEC needs to protect in their point of view.
So to say people have been kept out of the knowledge loop by the SEC is naive of the actual laws out there and their original intents. You are not shackled, the rules are clear in how and who you can talk too. Ms. Mary making $40k a year teaching English does not need to be thrown into the hedge fund industry.
2. Penny stocks are the riskiest investments out there. Anyone with true knowlege of ivnesting knows this already and you are not adding anything new. I think you admit not knowing anything about this sector when you got in. So in reality you needed to educate yourself. The average American might find it anecdotal to learn about penny stocks but they should not even touch them. A book is not needed to tell them this fact of life because most of them knew nothing about penny stocks before hand anyway. The worst thing in the world you can do is pretend to teach people how to actually make money in penny stocks and encourage them to go into this field. That is financially irresponsible.
3. You are closing your fund for one reason only, to stop trading (it was mostly your money anyway) and focus on the new career you have started. The SEC is not handcuffing you in any way since I see advisors all day on CNBC talking their book with full disclosure. People here truly do not hate you they are insulted by the double talk as though we are the naive group of people you are selling the book to.
4. You are not offering any amazing expose on the hedge fund industry. The rules and restrictions on hedge funds and advertising is easily found on Google. They all come from the SEC laws on the books since the 1930s. You are more focsued on the manipulation that occurs in the penny stock sector and again, the informed already know that a $0.40 stock with 5000 shares traded is easily manipulated.
My point is that you traded from your living room and started a hedge fund with your own money and a few investors. You actually do not have true insight into the hedge fund world because you were never in it. Jim Cramer was in the hedge fund world, Long-term Capital Management, the guys on Wall Street with $1 billion in assets are swimming head deep in the real world of raising capital, managing assets, leverage and returns. So it is a little misleading. I think you would have done better marketing talking about the penny stock markets and focusing on that. Your complaints on the SEC and the hedge fund industry is like a college Division 2 ball player claiming to critique the Major Leagues, from the outside.
So stop for a second and realize that behind these names are people with long industry experience and trading backgrounds who have a better sense of what the industry is and can see that you are waving your hands to get the attention but lack the substance. And no I do not need to read the book because you have already told me all I need to see. Trading your own account pretty much and in penny stocks and with assets of less than $2 million is not the hedge fund industry. I know many retail acconts which are much bigger and more active in alternative investments but so do a lot of people here.
Your marketing approach is not for the industry it is for those ignorant of the industry who dream of trading so they live through your story but for myself, I live this everyday and understand the SEC laws and industry regulations.
So I say this without trashing since I support you in your book as writing a book is a wonderful experience. What I take issue is the claims that you and the book and what you are offering are something they are not. Fine for the uninformed public since they do not know any better but for most of us familair with penny stocks, hedge funds and the SEC, it is more of the same and what Google can reveal. If you wish I can put a detailed google collection of info right here.
Tudor Jones Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Quotes from TimothySykes, and our replies:
1. SYKES SAID: ” If you’d read the book, you’d see my trading success continued long past the bubble and my short selling strategy has continued to work very well in a now 5-year old bull market.”
Re: Sykes amateurish hedge fund book:
Is it more sad or amusing when someone’s young ego spurs them to write a book when they possess neither literary skill nor talent? Sykes has commented elsewhere that his goal to become “a great teacher, not a great investor” but in this sad excuse for a tutorial he proves to be neither as his amateurish errors practically drive him from the market, credibility (what little he had) completely shredded. Perhaps, however, it’s not truly his fault: let’s face it, when it comes to imparting wisdom from Wall Street it is simply not possible that a raw twenty-something simply has much to say.
Not that Sykes doesn’t try however. In perusing the “comments” portion of Amazon book reviews, he’s certainly not reluctant to chime in and offer a defense at nearly every turn. Find me ONE other author at Amazon that feels so compelled to argue his own incompetence.
Tim Sykes should end his determined quest to become a media personality as his grating manner and decidedly non-telegenic looks suit him far better to shine shoes.
Danger Will Robinson - my B.S. detector is indicating a high concentration of effluence emanating from the psyik investor:
Ok, I just recently learned of this guy, Tim Sykes, and have visited the web site he set up, read his book , and watched a few of his idiotic appearances on various news outlets such as CNBC. This is HILARIOUS.
Tim, if you are reading this, listen up:
Much of what I’ll say is redundant but you know NOTHING about what you claim to know about. You are a rank amateur who has learned enough surface information about an industry so as to come across as being knowledgeable enough about it to teach to others. The only people that take you seriously are complete newcomers to this game that know next to nothing, because to a complete amateur you sound like you know what you are talking about. You have learned enough about trading to pretend and claim to have traded and that’s about it.
Trading your parents money via an online retail account is not a fund, but is laughable. Your story is just that, a story. “I turned my 12k bar mitzvah money into 2 million”. It reads like bad spam I get in my inbox but the journalists eat it up like cake. Your web site is hilarious because you are an enormous idiot and I will continue to visit it for free laughs. I wonder if you know how stupid you are or if you have truly convinced yourself that you have learned something valuable enough to write about?
[...] way, I like to see bloggers actually go after one another. Trading bloggers participating in a giant circle jerk is boring most of the [...]
[...] post on Retard Trader was meant to be a silly joke within the little trading group at virtual office, and I did wrongly [...]
The moron who wrote this article is just another jealous loser who could never measure up to tims brilliance and finacial genious, timothy sykes is one of the most imaginative, inspirational, and talented traders in the stock market today. He turned 12k into 2 million, until someone matches that keep your rude and uninformed comments to yourself.
LEAVE
BRITNEYTIM SYKES ALONE! WAAAH!!!Norman Lunden Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anonymous Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“I think that someone making $2 million in the stock market by age 22 is a news worthy story.”
$2 million? His claim started out as $1.2 million. Then it became $1.6 million. Now it’s $2 million. But who cares about facts and figures, right? You are pointing distressed college students towards a dishonest, sleazy, 27 year old, washed up day trader who is now dispensing highly imprudent financial advice, in order to gets these students “interested in investing.” … It seems the ends always justify the means at Young Money. But even the ends in this case are highly questionable. A naive student reading this magazine is not going to go seek out sensible financial advice, instead he is going go buy Timothy Sykes’s day trading DVD and start gambling on illiquid penny stocks with his student loan money in the hopes of making $2 million….
Steve Cohen Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I read Sykes book and it is rather boring…yes he is very honest….but that doesnt make it good/interesting. It’s like a baseball player who bats .150 writing a book on why he can’t hit…..who wants to read that?
Who is Sykes trying to pedal that crappy DVD to? Hopefully not the inexperienced people he says that are the target audience for the book. That would be leading new traders off of a cliff. BEWARE: Sykes has gone from failed hedge fund manager to cheesy snake oil book/dvd salesman.
IF Sykes had any real belief in his trading strategies then:
1) His hedge fund would still be open. (Instead it closed with a loss -37% since Jan2006, and returned an overall return of less than 1%/yr since 2003!)
2) He would still be trading his strategies in the fund. (Instead he wants to make money selling book/dvd to newbies/suckers).
3) In the case where he honestly did not trust his own discipline, then he could hire a REAL trader to properly execute the strategies. (Instead he just quit).
It’s simple, Sykes put your money where your mouth is. Do NOT take advantage of newbies and suckers by selling garbage book/dvd.
Sykes Be Honest: Tell everybody that even your family no longer trusts you to manage their money!! That fact defines you as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Gerard Alexander Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’ve been following Tim’s blossoming story with great interest and I feel compelled to answer his critics. They really should read the book because he details all his gains on a trade-by-trade basis and ti truly is inspirational. By my calculations, he does make $2 million (the $1.2 million is after-tax). His short recommendation on PRXI was dead on and yes, it appears he did post on message boards afterwards. But, that’s not against the law–especially since he’s a private citizen now, not a hedge fund manager.
So, Tim, keep up the great work, don’t listen to these jealous people, you’re an inspirations to us all!
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Just got done with the book, it’s an amazing read. I discovered the book from this review:
http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/how_to_expose_the_hedge_fund_industry_write_a_book_and_shut_yours_down.php
and was not let down. Boy Tim’s story really does seem to get people riled up
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was neutral on Timothy until I read his post and comments on elitetrader.com. I understand now why so many people dislike him. People respect you not because you are successful or failed in trading, people respect you if you are honest, down to earth and speak from your heart. Timothy put himself where he definitely not belong: by showing his knowledge on trading, starting some business plan to sale his trading ideas and has absolute no good record to back it up in recent years. As a trader in a trader’s community, I felt the same way as everyone else that his is not likeable at all. Who like a person talk all the time, showing off, but cannot do anything to back it up. Doesn’t matter in what place or profession, everyone try to get away from people like that. But he just keep on spamming on elitetrader.com over and over, it is like a clown try to catch your attention again and again, and that makes people on elitetrader.com hate him from dislike him so much.
Bruce Freedman Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sykes book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe trader. The book never hooked me. I struggled to get through each chapter.
Sykes horrible book is overhyped and embarrassingly bad! There have been so many other blowouts, and unlike Sykes many are actually interesting like Hunt brothers, LTCM, Livermore etc.
There is nothing special about Sykes story and his Hedge Fund failure! Moreover, Sykes book is not a story of someone WHO LOST IT ALL and had GUTS TO carry on and make it all back again.
ONCE Sykes lost his money, he just changed professions…haha….
What a FIGHTER!?..haha. Book is not worth $20 !!
Sebastian Berk Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I can’t imagine anyone being jealous of Tim unless they are living in a third world country and suffering from a terminal disease. Yea, his PRXI call was pure genius. He shorted at 14 and covered at 13 and change. Wow, a regular rocket surgeon. No wonder, he has to resort to selling books, that he self publishes. Anyway, I really wouldn’t care about Tim, if he was only a failed trader with a bad book and a worthless trading course. There are plenty of guys like that around. What is most annoying about him his is arrogance and constant spamming. Every time, some guy has that he sent a free book to reviews it, we have to hear about it on every trading website. It is endless. He is so insecure, having to respond to every random comment on the web, even if its not directed at him or seeking his opinion. Let me ask you this, if you were confident in your product, would you attack every random critic, doubtful. He also thinks that by being a failure, he has something to teach. He couldn’t make him self a good trader, but he can make you one, for a small fee of course.
Dave Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a guy who is now peddling a DVD on how to trade. One needs to ask themself if he has such great stock picking skills then why doesn’t his family and friends give him some money to trade? He’s claimed that they are already invested with him but have incurred losses from his investment in CYGT.PK (a company trading on pink sheets). One would think that if his trading skills are so sound (and profitable) then investors sitting on losses would be more than happy to give money so that the trader could make profits to offset their losses they’re sitting on.
Bottom line is that his trading skills have likely not adapted to the changing market — something any successful trader is able to do. Thus, it appears as if his means of making money in the markets have reverted to selling a DVD. Those that “can” (trade), do.
I suspect a year from now people will be saying “Tim who”. His 15 minutes of fame will have vanished as quickly as they came about.
Moron Detector Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I saw Tim on CNBC, when they were having their trading contest. He was asked to recommend a stock. So Tim says, I like XYZ. The interviewer asked why, and Tim said, I like the chart. Interviewer asked but why do you like the chart. To which Tim responded, just look at it, its going up, its a beautiful chart. It stuck in my mind. If you have the urge to buy his book, just take $20 out of your pocket and burn it. It’s much quicker and won’t scar you mentally.
Howard Kaplan Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Ross Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I concur with the negative commentors above. HE PRESENTS HIMSELF AS SOMEONE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS HELPING NEWER TRADERS FIND PROFIT, BUT HE USES FALSE ALIASES, LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH AND CONSTANTLY COMES OFF AS SOMEONE WHO IS MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SELLING HIS WARES, WHETHER OR NOT IT DROWNS NEW TRADERS.
Can you say, “parasite?”
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think we can sum it up like this: everyone like people who do more, talk less, not vice versa. Have we see any top trader or investor keep posting on forum every day for every article mention about him/her? No, but we have this guy who is like bottom amature trader keep posting like a old cheap whore consistantly flashing something that cause everyone to throw up.
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Just saw this on elitetrader.com, posted from Tim:
Daniel,
Timothy Sykes is a con artist. His knowledge of capital markets could be written on a post-it note (the small kind). If you have half a million college students day trading during a bubble market, then at least one will turn $12,000 into $1 million. Now, if you admire dumb luck then that’s your business. But it is highly irresponsible to present this dart throwing monkey as someone who should be dispensing financial advice to financially distressed college student, as you have done. You ****** up in your role as Managing Editor and now you are trying to control the damage by rationalizing your poor decision on your blog.
LOL Your statements keep getting more ridiculous. Did I con the DJ Newswire into calling my book “part Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”? Did I con MOJO to play my TV show 800 times? Did I con thousands of people into emailing me for more information?
Your whole thesis is based around your misguided assumption that i only made money in the bubble. I don’t know how you forget that I made hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Yes, 2006 wiped out my 03,04,05 gains–deal with it!
Seriously dude, whats wrong with you? All the media that feature me read my book and they like it. It’s that simple. You’re fighting a losing battle here buddy, probly because you don’t have all the info. Like a trader who’s short a stock that just keeps rising. Buy to cover! Buy to cover!
S.C. Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Sykes Be Honest:
Everybody knows that even Sykes own family no longer trusts him to manage their money!! That fact defines Sykes as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Beware: newbies and suckers avoid Sykes garbage book/dvd.
Abe Rosenberg Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Mr Sykes:
I understand why your family does not trust your money management, and I know you need to now be a book/dvd salesman to make money. However, I have to make a few points here from someone with Wall Street experience, not more than most but enough to make comments about your failures and “teachings” to newbies:
1. The SEC does not shackle or censor the industry. Mary and John Smith, the average retail investor out there does not have the discretionary dollars or financial know how to invest in hedge funds. The main reason for many rules and restrictions in the laws is that due to the risky and non-public nature of hedge funds, the average investor should be prevented from putting their meager investment dollars in there just to see it get blown up. The rich are either very sophisticated or have the money to afford fancy financial managers to due the due diligence for them if they wish to put money into hedge funds. This is not the class the SEC needs to protect in their point of view.
So to say people have been kept out of the knowledge loop by the SEC is naive of the actual laws out there and their original intents. You are not shackled, the rules are clear in how and who you can talk too. Ms. Mary making $40k a year teaching English does not need to be thrown into the hedge fund industry.
2. Penny stocks are the riskiest investments out there. Anyone with true knowlege of ivnesting knows this already and you are not adding anything new. I think you admit not knowing anything about this sector when you got in. So in reality you needed to educate yourself. The average American might find it anecdotal to learn about penny stocks but they should not even touch them. A book is not needed to tell them this fact of life because most of them knew nothing about penny stocks before hand anyway. The worst thing in the world you can do is pretend to teach people how to actually make money in penny stocks and encourage them to go into this field. That is financially irresponsible.
3. You are closing your fund for one reason only, to stop trading (it was mostly your money anyway) and focus on the new career you have started. The SEC is not handcuffing you in any way since I see advisors all day on CNBC talking their book with full disclosure. People here truly do not hate you they are insulted by the double talk as though we are the naive group of people you are selling the book to.
4. You are not offering any amazing expose on the hedge fund industry. The rules and restrictions on hedge funds and advertising is easily found on Google. They all come from the SEC laws on the books since the 1930s. You are more focsued on the manipulation that occurs in the penny stock sector and again, the informed already know that a $0.40 stock with 5000 shares traded is easily manipulated.
My point is that you traded from your living room and started a hedge fund with your own money and a few investors. You actually do not have true insight into the hedge fund world because you were never in it. Jim Cramer was in the hedge fund world, Long-term Capital Management, the guys on Wall Street with $1 billion in assets are swimming head deep in the real world of raising capital, managing assets, leverage and returns. So it is a little misleading. I think you would have done better marketing talking about the penny stock markets and focusing on that. Your complaints on the SEC and the hedge fund industry is like a college Division 2 ball player claiming to critique the Major Leagues, from the outside.
So stop for a second and realize that behind these names are people with long industry experience and trading backgrounds who have a better sense of what the industry is and can see that you are waving your hands to get the attention but lack the substance. And no I do not need to read the book because you have already told me all I need to see. Trading your own account pretty much and in penny stocks and with assets of less than $2 million is not the hedge fund industry. I know many retail acconts which are much bigger and more active in alternative investments but so do a lot of people here.
Your marketing approach is not for the industry it is for those ignorant of the industry who dream of trading so they live through your story but for myself, I live this everyday and understand the SEC laws and industry regulations.
So I say this without trashing since I support you in your book as writing a book is a wonderful experience. What I take issue is the claims that you and the book and what you are offering are something they are not. Fine for the uninformed public since they do not know any better but for most of us familair with penny stocks, hedge funds and the SEC, it is more of the same and what Google can reveal. If you wish I can put a detailed google collection of info right here.
Tudor Jones Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Quotes from TimothySykes, and our replies:
1. SYKES SAID: ” If you’d read the book, you’d see my trading success continued long past the bubble and my short selling strategy has continued to work very well in a now 5-year old bull market.”
Norman Lunden Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anonymous Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“I think that someone making $2 million in the stock market by age 22 is a news worthy story.”
$2 million? His claim started out as $1.2 million. Then it became $1.6 million. Now it’s $2 million. But who cares about facts and figures, right? You are pointing distressed college students towards a dishonest, sleazy, 27 year old, washed up day trader who is now dispensing highly imprudent financial advice, in order to gets these students “interested in investing.” … It seems the ends always justify the means at Young Money. But even the ends in this case are highly questionable. A naive student reading this magazine is not going to go seek out sensible financial advice, instead he is going go buy Timothy Sykes’s day trading DVD and start gambling on illiquid penny stocks with his student loan money in the hopes of making $2 million….
Steve Cohen Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I read Sykes book and it is rather boring…yes he is very honest….but that doesnt make it good/interesting. It’s like a baseball player who bats .150 writing a book on why he can’t hit…..who wants to read that?
Who is Sykes trying to pedal that crappy DVD to? Hopefully not the inexperienced people he says that are the target audience for the book. That would be leading new traders off of a cliff. BEWARE: Sykes has gone from failed hedge fund manager to cheesy snake oil book/dvd salesman.
IF Sykes had any real belief in his trading strategies then:
1) His hedge fund would still be open. (Instead it closed with a loss -37% since Jan2006, and returned an overall return of less than 1%/yr since 2003!)
2) He would still be trading his strategies in the fund. (Instead he wants to make money selling book/dvd to newbies/suckers).
3) In the case where he honestly did not trust his own discipline, then he could hire a REAL trader to properly execute the strategies. (Instead he just quit).
It’s simple, Sykes put your money where your mouth is. Do NOT take advantage of newbies and suckers by selling garbage book/dvd.
Sykes Be Honest: Tell everybody that even your family no longer trusts you to manage their money!! That fact defines you as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Gerard Alexander Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’ve been following Tim’s blossoming story with great interest and I feel compelled to answer his critics. They really should read the book because he details all his gains on a trade-by-trade basis and ti truly is inspirational. By my calculations, he does make $2 million (the $1.2 million is after-tax). His short recommendation on PRXI was dead on and yes, it appears he did post on message boards afterwards. But, that’s not against the law–especially since he’s a private citizen now, not a hedge fund manager.
So, Tim, keep up the great work, don’t listen to these jealous people, you’re an inspirations to us all!
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Just got done with the book, it’s an amazing read. I discovered the book from this review:
http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/how_to_expose_the_hedge_fund_industry_write_a_book_and_shut_yours_down.php
and was not let down. Boy Tim’s story really does seem to get people riled up
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was neutral on Timothy until I read his post and comments on elitetrader.com. I understand now why so many people dislike him. People respect you not because you are successful or failed in trading, people respect you if you are honest, down to earth and speak from your heart. Timothy put himself where he definitely not belong: by showing his knowledge on trading, starting some business plan to sale his trading ideas and has absolute no good record to back it up in recent years. As a trader in a trader’s community, I felt the same way as everyone else that his is not likeable at all. Who like a person talk all the time, showing off, but cannot do anything to back it up. Doesn’t matter in what place or profession, everyone try to get away from people like that. But he just keep on spamming on elitetrader.com over and over, it is like a clown try to catch your attention again and again, and that makes people on elitetrader.com hate him from dislike him so much.
Bruce Freedman Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sykes book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe trader. The book never hooked me. I struggled to get through each chapter.
Sykes horrible book is overhyped and embarrassingly bad! There have been so many other blowouts, and unlike Sykes many are actually interesting like Hunt brothers, LTCM, Livermore etc.
There is nothing special about Sykes story and his Hedge Fund failure! Moreover, Sykes book is not a story of someone WHO LOST IT ALL and had GUTS TO carry on and make it all back again.
ONCE Sykes lost his money, he just changed professions…haha….
What a FIGHTER!?..haha. Book is not worth $20 !!
Sebastian Berk Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I can’t imagine anyone being jealous of Tim unless they are living in a third world country and suffering from a terminal disease. Yea, his PRXI call was pure genius. He shorted at 14 and covered at 13 and change. Wow, a regular rocket surgeon. No wonder, he has to resort to selling books, that he self publishes. Anyway, I really wouldn’t care about Tim, if he was only a failed trader with a bad book and a worthless trading course. There are plenty of guys like that around. What is most annoying about him his is arrogance and constant spamming. Every time, some guy has that he sent a free book to reviews it, we have to hear about it on every trading website. It is endless. He is so insecure, having to respond to every random comment on the web, even if its not directed at him or seeking his opinion. Let me ask you this, if you were confident in your product, would you attack every random critic, doubtful. He also thinks that by being a failure, he has something to teach. He couldn’t make him self a good trader, but he can make you one, for a small fee of course.
Dave Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a guy who is now peddling a DVD on how to trade. One needs to ask themself if he has such great stock picking skills then why doesn’t his family and friends give him some money to trade? He’s claimed that they are already invested with him but have incurred losses from his investment in CYGT.PK (a company trading on pink sheets). One would think that if his trading skills are so sound (and profitable) then investors sitting on losses would be more than happy to give money so that the trader could make profits to offset their losses they’re sitting on.
Bottom line is that his trading skills have likely not adapted to the changing market — something any successful trader is able to do. Thus, it appears as if his means of making money in the markets have reverted to selling a DVD. Those that “can” (trade), do.
I suspect a year from now people will be saying “Tim who”. His 15 minutes of fame will have vanished as quickly as they came about.
Moron Detector Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I saw Tim on CNBC, when they were having their trading contest. He was asked to recommend a stock. So Tim says, I like XYZ. The interviewer asked why, and Tim said, I like the chart. Interviewer asked but why do you like the chart. To which Tim responded, just look at it, its going up, its a beautiful chart. It stuck in my mind. If you have the urge to buy his book, just take $20 out of your pocket and burn it. It’s much quicker and won’t scar you mentally.
Howard Kaplan Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Ross Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I concur with the negative commentors above. HE PRESENTS HIMSELF AS SOMEONE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS HELPING NEWER TRADERS FIND PROFIT, BUT HE USES FALSE ALIASES, LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH AND CONSTANTLY COMES OFF AS SOMEONE WHO IS MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SELLING HIS WARES, WHETHER OR NOT IT DROWNS NEW TRADERS.
Can you say, “parasite?”
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think we can sum it up like this: everyone like people who do more, talk less, not vice versa. Have we see any top trader or investor keep posting on forum every day for every article mention about him/her? No, but we have this guy who is like bottom amature trader keep posting like a old cheap whore consistantly flashing something that cause everyone to throw up.
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Just saw this on elitetrader.com, posted from Tim:
Daniel,
Timothy Sykes is a con artist. His knowledge of capital markets could be written on a post-it note (the small kind). If you have half a million college students day trading during a bubble market, then at least one will turn $12,000 into $1 million. Now, if you admire dumb luck then that’s your business. But it is highly irresponsible to present this dart throwing monkey as someone who should be dispensing financial advice to financially distressed college student, as you have done. You ****** up in your role as Managing Editor and now you are trying to control the damage by rationalizing your poor decision on your blog.
LOL Your statements keep getting more ridiculous. Did I con the DJ Newswire into calling my book “part Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”? Did I con MOJO to play my TV show 800 times? Did I con thousands of people into emailing me for more information?
Your whole thesis is based around your misguided assumption that i only made money in the bubble. I don’t know how you forget that I made hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Yes, 2006 wiped out my 03,04,05 gains–deal with it!
Seriously dude, whats wrong with you? All the media that feature me read my book and they like it. It’s that simple. You’re fighting a losing battle here buddy, probly because you don’t have all the info. Like a trader who’s short a stock that just keeps rising. Buy to cover! Buy to cover!
S.C. Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Sykes Be Honest:
Everybody knows that even Sykes own family no longer trusts him to manage their money!! That fact defines Sykes as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Beware: newbies and suckers avoid Sykes garbage book/dvd.
Abe Rosenberg Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Mr Sykes:
I understand why your family does not trust your money management, and I know you need to now be a book/dvd salesman to make money. However, I have to make a few points here from someone with Wall Street experience, not more than most but enough to make comments about your failures and “teachings” to newbies:
1. The SEC does not shackle or censor the industry. Mary and John Smith, the average retail investor out there does not have the discretionary dollars or financial know how to invest in hedge funds. The main reason for many rules and restrictions in the laws is that due to the risky and non-public nature of hedge funds, the average investor should be prevented from putting their meager investment dollars in there just to see it get blown up. The rich are either very sophisticated or have the money to afford fancy financial managers to due the due diligence for them if they wish to put money into hedge funds. This is not the class the SEC needs to protect in their point of view.
So to say people have been kept out of the knowledge loop by the SEC is naive of the actual laws out there and their original intents. You are not shackled, the rules are clear in how and who you can talk too. Ms. Mary making $40k a year teaching English does not need to be thrown into the hedge fund industry.
2. Penny stocks are the riskiest investments out there. Anyone with true knowlege of ivnesting knows this already and you are not adding anything new. I think you admit not knowing anything about this sector when you got in. So in reality you needed to educate yourself. The average American might find it anecdotal to learn about penny stocks but they should not even touch them. A book is not needed to tell them this fact of life because most of them knew nothing about penny stocks before hand anyway. The worst thing in the world you can do is pretend to teach people how to actually make money in penny stocks and encourage them to go into this field. That is financially irresponsible.
3. You are closing your fund for one reason only, to stop trading (it was mostly your money anyway) and focus on the new career you have started. The SEC is not handcuffing you in any way since I see advisors all day on CNBC talking their book with full disclosure. People here truly do not hate you they are insulted by the double talk as though we are the naive group of people you are selling the book to.
4. You are not offering any amazing expose on the hedge fund industry. The rules and restrictions on hedge funds and advertising is easily found on Google. They all come from the SEC laws on the books since the 1930s. You are more focsued on the manipulation that occurs in the penny stock sector and again, the informed already know that a $0.40 stock with 5000 shares traded is easily manipulated.
My point is that you traded from your living room and started a hedge fund with your own money and a few investors. You actually do not have true insight into the hedge fund world because you were never in it. Jim Cramer was in the hedge fund world, Long-term Capital Management, the guys on Wall Street with $1 billion in assets are swimming head deep in the real world of raising capital, managing assets, leverage and returns. So it is a little misleading. I think you would have done better marketing talking about the penny stock markets and focusing on that. Your complaints on the SEC and the hedge fund industry is like a college Division 2 ball player claiming to critique the Major Leagues, from the outside.
So stop for a second and realize that behind these names are people with long industry experience and trading backgrounds who have a better sense of what the industry is and can see that you are waving your hands to get the attention but lack the substance. And no I do not need to read the book because you have already told me all I need to see. Trading your own account pretty much and in penny stocks and with assets of less than $2 million is not the hedge fund industry. I know many retail acconts which are much bigger and more active in alternative investments but so do a lot of people here.
Your marketing approach is not for the industry it is for those ignorant of the industry who dream of trading so they live through your story but for myself, I live this everyday and understand the SEC laws and industry regulations.
So I say this without trashing since I support you in your book as writing a book is a wonderful experience. What I take issue is the claims that you and the book and what you are offering are something they are not. Fine for the uninformed public since they do not know any better but for most of us familair with penny stocks, hedge funds and the SEC, it is more of the same and what Google can reveal. If you wish I can put a detailed google collection of info right here.
Tudor Jones Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Quotes from TimothySykes, and our replies:
1. SYKES SAID: ” If you’d read the book, you’d see my trading success continued long past the bubble and my short selling strategy has continued to work very well in a now 5-year old bull market.”
Norman Lunden Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anonymous Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“I think that someone making $2 million in the stock market by age 22 is a news worthy story.”
$2 million? His claim started out as $1.2 million. Then it became $1.6 million. Now it’s $2 million. But who cares about facts and figures, right? You are pointing distressed college students towards a dishonest, sleazy, 27 year old, washed up day trader who is now dispensing highly imprudent financial advice, in order to gets these students “interested in investing.” … It seems the ends always justify the means at Young Money. But even the ends in this case are highly questionable. A naive student reading this magazine is not going to go seek out sensible financial advice, instead he is going go buy Timothy Sykes’s day trading DVD and start gambling on illiquid penny stocks with his student loan money in the hopes of making $2 million….
Steve Cohen Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I read Sykes book and it is rather boring…yes he is very honest….but that doesnt make it good/interesting. It’s like a baseball player who bats .150 writing a book on why he can’t hit…..who wants to read that?
Who is Sykes trying to pedal that crappy DVD to? Hopefully not the inexperienced people he says that are the target audience for the book. That would be leading new traders off of a cliff. BEWARE: Sykes has gone from failed hedge fund manager to cheesy snake oil book/dvd salesman.
IF Sykes had any real belief in his trading strategies then:
1) His hedge fund would still be open. (Instead it closed with a loss -37% since Jan2006, and returned an overall return of less than 1%/yr since 2003!)
2) He would still be trading his strategies in the fund. (Instead he wants to make money selling book/dvd to newbies/suckers).
3) In the case where he honestly did not trust his own discipline, then he could hire a REAL trader to properly execute the strategies. (Instead he just quit).
It’s simple, Sykes put your money where your mouth is. Do NOT take advantage of newbies and suckers by selling garbage book/dvd.
Sykes Be Honest: Tell everybody that even your family no longer trusts you to manage their money!! That fact defines you as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Gerard Alexander Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’ve been following Tim’s blossoming story with great interest and I feel compelled to answer his critics. They really should read the book because he details all his gains on a trade-by-trade basis and ti truly is inspirational. By my calculations, he does make $2 million (the $1.2 million is after-tax). His short recommendation on PRXI was dead on and yes, it appears he did post on message boards afterwards. But, that’s not against the law–especially since he’s a private citizen now, not a hedge fund manager.
So, Tim, keep up the great work, don’t listen to these jealous people, you’re an inspirations to us all!
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Just got done with the book, it’s an amazing read. I discovered the book from this review:
http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/how_to_expose_the_hedge_fund_industry_write_a_book_and_shut_yours_down.php
and was not let down. Boy Tim’s story really does seem to get people riled up
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was neutral on Timothy until I read his post and comments on elitetrader.com. I understand now why so many people dislike him. People respect you not because you are successful or failed in trading, people respect you if you are honest, down to earth and speak from your heart. Timothy put himself where he definitely not belong: by showing his knowledge on trading, starting some business plan to sale his trading ideas and has absolute no good record to back it up in recent years. As a trader in a trader’s community, I felt the same way as everyone else that his is not likeable at all. Who like a person talk all the time, showing off, but cannot do anything to back it up. Doesn’t matter in what place or profession, everyone try to get away from people like that. But he just keep on spamming on elitetrader.com over and over, it is like a clown try to catch your attention again and again, and that makes people on elitetrader.com hate him from dislike him so much.
Bruce Freedman Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sykes book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe trader. The book never hooked me. I struggled to get through each chapter.
Sykes horrible book is overhyped and embarrassingly bad! There have been so many other blowouts, and unlike Sykes many are actually interesting like Hunt brothers, LTCM, Livermore etc.
There is nothing special about Sykes story and his Hedge Fund failure! Moreover, Sykes book is not a story of someone WHO LOST IT ALL and had GUTS TO carry on and make it all back again.
ONCE Sykes lost his money, he just changed professions…haha….
What a FIGHTER!?..haha. Book is not worth $20 !!
Sebastian Berk Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I can’t imagine anyone being jealous of Tim unless they are living in a third world country and suffering from a terminal disease. Yea, his PRXI call was pure genius. He shorted at 14 and covered at 13 and change. Wow, a regular rocket surgeon. No wonder, he has to resort to selling books, that he self publishes. Anyway, I really wouldn’t care about Tim, if he was only a failed trader with a bad book and a worthless trading course. There are plenty of guys like that around. What is most annoying about him his is arrogance and constant spamming. Every time, some guy has that he sent a free book to reviews it, we have to hear about it on every trading website. It is endless. He is so insecure, having to respond to every random comment on the web, even if its not directed at him or seeking his opinion. Let me ask you this, if you were confident in your product, would you attack every random critic, doubtful. He also thinks that by being a failure, he has something to teach. He couldn’t make him self a good trader, but he can make you one, for a small fee of course.
Dave Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a guy who is now peddling a DVD on how to trade. One needs to ask themself if he has such great stock picking skills then why doesn’t his family and friends give him some money to trade? He’s claimed that they are already invested with him but have incurred losses from his investment in CYGT.PK (a company trading on pink sheets). One would think that if his trading skills are so sound (and profitable) then investors sitting on losses would be more than happy to give money so that the trader could make profits to offset their losses they’re sitting on.
Bottom line is that his trading skills have likely not adapted to the changing market — something any successful trader is able to do. Thus, it appears as if his means of making money in the markets have reverted to selling a DVD. Those that “can” (trade), do.
I suspect a year from now people will be saying “Tim who”. His 15 minutes of fame will have vanished as quickly as they came about.
Moron Detector Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I saw Tim on CNBC, when they were having their trading contest. He was asked to recommend a stock. So Tim says, I like XYZ. The interviewer asked why, and Tim said, I like the chart. Interviewer asked but why do you like the chart. To which Tim responded, just look at it, its going up, its a beautiful chart. It stuck in my mind. If you have the urge to buy his book, just take $20 out of your pocket and burn it. It’s much quicker and won’t scar you mentally.
Howard Kaplan Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Ross Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I concur with the negative commentors above. HE PRESENTS HIMSELF AS SOMEONE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS HELPING NEWER TRADERS FIND PROFIT, BUT HE USES FALSE ALIASES, LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH AND CONSTANTLY COMES OFF AS SOMEONE WHO IS MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SELLING HIS WARES, WHETHER OR NOT IT DROWNS NEW TRADERS.
Can you say, “parasite?”
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think we can sum it up like this: everyone like people who do more, talk less, not vice versa. Have we see any top trader or investor keep posting on forum every day for every article mention about him/her? No, but we have this guy who is like bottom amature trader keep posting like a old cheap whore consistantly flashing something that cause everyone to throw up.
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Just saw this on elitetrader.com, posted from Tim:
Daniel,
Timothy Sykes is a con artist. His knowledge of capital markets could be written on a post-it note (the small kind). If you have half a million college students day trading during a bubble market, then at least one will turn $12,000 into $1 million. Now, if you admire dumb luck then that’s your business. But it is highly irresponsible to present this dart throwing monkey as someone who should be dispensing financial advice to financially distressed college student, as you have done. You ****** up in your role as Managing Editor and now you are trying to control the damage by rationalizing your poor decision on your blog.
LOL Your statements keep getting more ridiculous. Did I con the DJ Newswire into calling my book “part Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”? Did I con MOJO to play my TV show 800 times? Did I con thousands of people into emailing me for more information?
Your whole thesis is based around your misguided assumption that i only made money in the bubble. I don’t know how you forget that I made hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Yes, 2006 wiped out my 03,04,05 gains–deal with it!
Seriously dude, whats wrong with you? All the media that feature me read my book and they like it. It’s that simple. You’re fighting a losing battle here buddy, probly because you don’t have all the info. Like a trader who’s short a stock that just keeps rising. Buy to cover! Buy to cover!
S.C. Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Sykes Be Honest:
Everybody knows that even Sykes own family no longer trusts him to manage their money!! That fact defines Sykes as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Beware: newbies and suckers avoid Sykes garbage book/dvd.
Abe Rosenberg Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Mr Sykes:
I understand why your family does not trust your money management, and I know you need to now be a book/dvd salesman to make money. However, I have to make a few points here from someone with Wall Street experience, not more than most but enough to make comments about your failures and “teachings” to newbies:
1. The SEC does not shackle or censor the industry. Mary and John Smith, the average retail investor out there does not have the discretionary dollars or financial know how to invest in hedge funds. The main reason for many rules and restrictions in the laws is that due to the risky and non-public nature of hedge funds, the average investor should be prevented from putting their meager investment dollars in there just to see it get blown up. The rich are either very sophisticated or have the money to afford fancy financial managers to due the due diligence for them if they wish to put money into hedge funds. This is not the class the SEC needs to protect in their point of view.
So to say people have been kept out of the knowledge loop by the SEC is naive of the actual laws out there and their original intents. You are not shackled, the rules are clear in how and who you can talk too. Ms. Mary making $40k a year teaching English does not need to be thrown into the hedge fund industry.
2. Penny stocks are the riskiest investments out there. Anyone with true knowlege of ivnesting knows this already and you are not adding anything new. I think you admit not knowing anything about this sector when you got in. So in reality you needed to educate yourself. The average American might find it anecdotal to learn about penny stocks but they should not even touch them. A book is not needed to tell them this fact of life because most of them knew nothing about penny stocks before hand anyway. The worst thing in the world you can do is pretend to teach people how to actually make money in penny stocks and encourage them to go into this field. That is financially irresponsible.
3. You are closing your fund for one reason only, to stop trading (it was mostly your money anyway) and focus on the new career you have started. The SEC is not handcuffing you in any way since I see advisors all day on CNBC talking their book with full disclosure. People here truly do not hate you they are insulted by the double talk as though we are the naive group of people you are selling the book to.
4. You are not offering any amazing expose on the hedge fund industry. The rules and restrictions on hedge funds and advertising is easily found on Google. They all come from the SEC laws on the books since the 1930s. You are more focsued on the manipulation that occurs in the penny stock sector and again, the informed already know that a $0.40 stock with 5000 shares traded is easily manipulated.
My point is that you traded from your living room and started a hedge fund with your own money and a few investors. You actually do not have true insight into the hedge fund world because you were never in it. Jim Cramer was in the hedge fund world, Long-term Capital Management, the guys on Wall Street with $1 billion in assets are swimming head deep in the real world of raising capital, managing assets, leverage and returns. So it is a little misleading. I think you would have done better marketing talking about the penny stock markets and focusing on that. Your complaints on the SEC and the hedge fund industry is like a college Division 2 ball player claiming to critique the Major Leagues, from the outside.
So stop for a second and realize that behind these names are people with long industry experience and trading backgrounds who have a better sense of what the industry is and can see that you are waving your hands to get the attention but lack the substance. And no I do not need to read the book because you have already told me all I need to see. Trading your own account pretty much and in penny stocks and with assets of less than $2 million is not the hedge fund industry. I know many retail acconts which are much bigger and more active in alternative investments but so do a lot of people here.
Your marketing approach is not for the industry it is for those ignorant of the industry who dream of trading so they live through your story but for myself, I live this everyday and understand the SEC laws and industry regulations.
So I say this without trashing since I support you in your book as writing a book is a wonderful experience. What I take issue is the claims that you and the book and what you are offering are something they are not. Fine for the uninformed public since they do not know any better but for most of us familair with penny stocks, hedge funds and the SEC, it is more of the same and what Google can reveal. If you wish I can put a detailed google collection of info right here.
Tudor Jones Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Quotes from TimothySykes, and our replies:
1. SYKES SAID: ” If you’d read the book, you’d see my trading success continued long past the bubble and my short selling strategy has continued to work very well in a now 5-year old bull market.”
Norman Lunden Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Update to the Sykes saga. He has been reported to the SEC for posting on message boards attacks against a company he made a short recommendation against on thestreet.com
How he swindled that side into giving him a podium is anybody’s guess. I imagine he fancies himself ala Jim Cramer, but where he tries to match Cramer in terms of bluster and self-aggrandizement he lacks Cramer’s obvious deep well of knowledge and ability to educate about the markets which is something Sykes cannot do. I hope Cramer knows Sykes used his site and then bashed the same pick on Yahoo and Raging Bull message boards immediately after to reinforce the chances of success for his short recommendation.
This kid is the sleaziest thing to hit the financial media in a long time and that is saying something.
Just say NO to Tim Sykes.
And if you haven’t already seen his now classic laughing stock of Wall Street series of emails published on TraderDaily.com go look them up. They are excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anonymous Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“I think that someone making $2 million in the stock market by age 22 is a news worthy story.”
$2 million? His claim started out as $1.2 million. Then it became $1.6 million. Now it’s $2 million. But who cares about facts and figures, right? You are pointing distressed college students towards a dishonest, sleazy, 27 year old, washed up day trader who is now dispensing highly imprudent financial advice, in order to gets these students “interested in investing.” … It seems the ends always justify the means at Young Money. But even the ends in this case are highly questionable. A naive student reading this magazine is not going to go seek out sensible financial advice, instead he is going go buy Timothy Sykes’s day trading DVD and start gambling on illiquid penny stocks with his student loan money in the hopes of making $2 million….
Steve Cohen Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I read Sykes book and it is rather boring…yes he is very honest….but that doesnt make it good/interesting. It’s like a baseball player who bats .150 writing a book on why he can’t hit…..who wants to read that?
Who is Sykes trying to pedal that crappy DVD to? Hopefully not the inexperienced people he says that are the target audience for the book. That would be leading new traders off of a cliff. BEWARE: Sykes has gone from failed hedge fund manager to cheesy snake oil book/dvd salesman.
IF Sykes had any real belief in his trading strategies then:
1) His hedge fund would still be open. (Instead it closed with a loss -37% since Jan2006, and returned an overall return of less than 1%/yr since 2003!)
2) He would still be trading his strategies in the fund. (Instead he wants to make money selling book/dvd to newbies/suckers).
3) In the case where he honestly did not trust his own discipline, then he could hire a REAL trader to properly execute the strategies. (Instead he just quit).
It’s simple, Sykes put your money where your mouth is. Do NOT take advantage of newbies and suckers by selling garbage book/dvd.
Sykes Be Honest: Tell everybody that even your family no longer trusts you to manage their money!! That fact defines you as NOT TRUSTWORTHY!!
Gerard Alexander Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’ve been following Tim’s blossoming story with great interest and I feel compelled to answer his critics. They really should read the book because he details all his gains on a trade-by-trade basis and ti truly is inspirational. By my calculations, he does make $2 million (the $1.2 million is after-tax). His short recommendation on PRXI was dead on and yes, it appears he did post on message boards afterwards. But, that’s not against the law–especially since he’s a private citizen now, not a hedge fund manager.
So, Tim, keep up the great work, don’t listen to these jealous people, you’re an inspirations to us all!
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Just got done with the book, it’s an amazing read. I discovered the book from this review:
http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/how_to_expose_the_hedge_fund_industry_write_a_book_and_shut_yours_down.php
and was not let down. Boy Tim’s story really does seem to get people riled up
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was neutral on Timothy until I read his post and comments on elitetrader.com. I understand now why so many people dislike him. People respect you not because you are successful or failed in trading, people respect you if you are honest, down to earth and speak from your heart. Timothy put himself where he definitely not belong: by showing his knowledge on trading, starting some business plan to sale his trading ideas and has absolute no good record to back it up in recent years. As a trader in a trader’s community, I felt the same way as everyone else that his is not likeable at all. Who like a person talk all the time, showing off, but cannot do anything to back it up. Doesn’t matter in what place or profession, everyone try to get away from people like that. But he just keep on spamming on elitetrader.com over and over, it is like a clown try to catch your attention again and again, and that makes people on elitetrader.com hate him from dislike him so much.
Bruce Freedman Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sykes book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe trader. The book never hooked me. I struggled to get through each chapter.
Sykes horrible book is overhyped and embarrassingly bad! There have been so many other blowouts, and unlike Sykes many are actually interesting like Hunt brothers, LTCM, Livermore etc.
There is nothing special about Sykes story and his Hedge Fund failure! Moreover, Sykes book is not a story of someone WHO LOST IT ALL and had GUTS TO carry on and make it all back again.
ONCE Sykes lost his money, he just changed professions…haha….
What a FIGHTER!?..haha. Book is not worth $20 !!
Sebastian Berk Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I can’t imagine anyone being jealous of Tim unless they are living in a third world country and suffering from a terminal disease. Yea, his PRXI call was pure genius. He shorted at 14 and covered at 13 and change. Wow, a regular rocket surgeon. No wonder, he has to resort to selling books, that he self publishes. Anyway, I really wouldn’t care about Tim, if he was only a failed trader with a bad book and a worthless trading course. There are plenty of guys like that around. What is most annoying about him his is arrogance and constant spamming. Every time, some guy has that he sent a free book to reviews it, we have to hear about it on every trading website. It is endless. He is so insecure, having to respond to every random comment on the web, even if its not directed at him or seeking his opinion. Let me ask you this, if you were confident in your product, would you attack every random critic, doubtful. He also thinks that by being a failure, he has something to teach. He couldn’t make him self a good trader, but he can make you one, for a small fee of course.
Dave Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a guy who is now peddling a DVD on how to trade. One needs to ask themself if he has such great stock picking skills then why doesn’t his family and friends give him some money to trade? He’s claimed that they are already invested with him but have incurred losses from his investment in CYGT.PK (a company trading on pink sheets). One would think that if his trading skills are so sound (and profitable) then investors sitting on losses would be more than happy to give money so that the trader could make profits to offset their losses they’re sitting on.
Bottom line is that his trading skills have likely not adapted to the changing market — something any successful trader is able to do. Thus, it appears as if his means of making money in the markets have reverted to selling a DVD. Those that “can” (trade), do.
I suspect a year from now people will be saying “Tim who”. His 15 minutes of fame will have vanished as quickly as they came about.
Moron Detector Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I saw Tim on CNBC, when they were having their trading contest. He was asked to recommend a stock. So Tim says, I like XYZ. The interviewer asked why, and Tim said, I like the chart. Interviewer asked but why do you like the chart. To which Tim responded, just look at it, its going up, its a beautiful chart. It stuck in my mind. If you have the urge to buy his book, just take $20 out of your pocket and burn it. It’s much quicker and won’t scar you mentally.
Howard Kaplan Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I read Sykes mediocre hedge fund book since I knew him at Tulane, and like him as a person. However, the book is an empty and uninspiring story about how Sykes became a self-absorbed irresponsible stock trader. This book is NOT a “classic” and story is NOT “Rocky-like”(as author Sykes claims). This book is basically like a blog of an average person who got lucky trading stocks and then his luck ran out (which it really should be - blog and nothing more).
Beware of all the phony glowing reviews for Sykes Book. Its the good ole boy network in high gear where authors/investment advisers use the buddy system to give fake good reviews to each other.
Sykes put the term “stock operator” in title in order to confuse all future book searches for Jesse Livermore’s excellent story (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre (1923)). This cheesy trick might help book sales, but needless to say, Sykes has nothing in common with the great trader Livermore.
Sykes comes across like a hyper/immature/video game player-type Trader, which worked for him for a few years; then the law of averages caught up with him. His “return to the mean” continues during the past two years; and his very poor investment strategies are DOWN -37% since Jan 2006. His continuous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.
Ross Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I concur with the negative commentors above. HE PRESENTS HIMSELF AS SOMEONE WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS HELPING NEWER TRADERS FIND PROFIT, BUT HE USES FALSE ALIASES, LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH AND CONSTANTLY COMES OFF AS SOMEONE WHO IS MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SELLING HIS WARES, WHETHER OR NOT IT DROWNS NEW TRADERS.
Can you say, “parasite?”
another trader Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think we can sum it up like this: everyone like people who do more, talk less, not vice versa. Have we see any top trader or investor keep posting on forum every day for every article mention about him/her? No, but we have this guy who is like bottom amature trader keep posting like a old cheap whore consistantly flashing something that cause everyone to throw up.
Jim Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Just saw this on elitetrader.com,
[...] will likely have a larger view and reading count than other popular posts on Retard Trader like Timothy Sykes psychic detective, Trade Authorization: No, and the lead into this post which is Losing thousands of dollars. The [...]
A simple analogy sums up “Rich Ass Jew” as he calls himself on myspace:
Timothy Sykes=Kevin Trudeau (are they born from the same mother?)
They both sell DVDs and books to swindle money from people instead of making an honest living. Both should be beaten senseless by all of the naive consumers that buy these so-called “books.” I like to call them fairy tales and lies.
Get a job selling electronics on 47th street.
Tim, if you are for real, post your W2 that shows the 12k-2 mill. I call bull****. I bet you had to sell that gay ping pong table on your website at a flea market in Chelsea just to get a train back to mommie’s HUD condo in CT.
From the NY POST: PARTY’S OVER FOR HEDGE KING
September 21, 2007 — A WALL Street war has erupted between influential Trader Monthly magazine and boisterous money manager Timothy Sykes, who says he was rudely disinvited to its “30 Under 30″ party at Gold Street restaurant celebrating young financial whizzes after his once-mighty hedge fund tanked.
“Everything was fine, and then I get a call from their p.r. lady telling me I was no longer invited,” Sykes, star of last year’s Internet reality show “Wall Street Warriors,” told Page Six.
“Then I spoke with the editor-in-chief, Randall Lane, and he said I wasn’t welcome. My friends couldn’t believe it - they were like, ‘What did you do to him, screw his girlfriend or something?’ ”
Lane says Sykes is a shameless publicity hound whose Cilantro Fund lost a third of its value since last year. In an e-mail to Sykes, he wrote: “Acclaim comes with performance. While you’ve been busily self-promoting, your track record this past year for yourself and your investors has been pitiful. Laughably horrid. If you ever again become a real trader - rather than ignore the hard work required to instead play one on TV - you’ll be welcome in our community.
“Until then . . . we will have nothing to do with you, as we celebrate those who actually perform versus those who pretend to.”
What a difference a year makes. In 2006, Sykes was not only the star of the “30 Under 30″ bash, he was written up in the Times for turning $12,415 of Bar Mitzvah gift money into a $1.65 million fortune and launching Cilantro Fund Management, which became top-ranked by Barclays.
But Cilantro has suffered major losses, and in his new book, “An American Hedge Fund,” Sykes slams the market, writing: “I would like to thank the thousands of inept corporate management teams, shady brokers, boiler rooms, stock promoters, market manipulators . . . for your endless scheming and undying greed without which my fortune would never have been possible.”
Lane told us Sykes no longer fits in with Trader Monthly’s audience: “This guy has decided to become Mr. Media as his hedge fund loses money.” But Sykes said Lane and his magazine are losing face. “For the editor-in-chief of a magazine I used to worship, this is crazy,” he said. “It’s a slap in the face.”
Most Investment Newsletters Are Bull Waiting
For the Pen Written By People Who Do
Not Even Trade Stocks!
http://www.TimothySykesExposed.com
Could the sad reality be that most who write the newsletters have
never even TRADED stocks and their real skill is in writing news
and feeding bull to a begging market?
Get my FREE Report NOW Before Tim’s Lawyer Shuts Us Down!
http://www.TimothySykesExposed.com
Timothy Sykes is a hypocrite.
After I discovered severe corruption at Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, I wrote a fully documented message detailing the allegations, which I posted on Timothy Syke’s website.
In a very short time, my message was deleted. When I contacted Sykes, his excuses ran the gamut from “the file size was too large” to “the message doesn’t fit the theme of our website” to “you don’t write good enough”.
Timothy Sykes is not a prophet who exposes “manipulative forces at work in companies, the media, ANALysts, etc.” as he proclaims. Timothy Sykes is a liar who probably works *for* the manipulative forces as a facade of opposition.
If you would like to receive a copy of my message about corruption at Eurostat that includes graphics, please contact me.
Jeffrey W. Bowyer
jbowyer@seznam.cz
Timothy Sykes Tim Alerts is ALL BULL****! Don’t listen to this lie until you read the TRUTH About Timothy Sykes and His REAL Results
http://www.timothysykesexposed.com
…and regarding “Jeremy”. His website “timothysykesexposed.com” is NOT opposed to Timothy Sykes. In reality, it is another (strange) way Sykes uses to market his products.
Here is an email message that I received from “Jeremy”:
——————————————————–
Jeffrey,
Seriously - what is it going to take for you to see - Timothy Sykes
works - his stuff works - he’s not on trial!
45% PROFIT in 2 DAYS SHORT SELLING CRAPPY STOCKS!!
Jeremy Krakowski
admin@TimothySykesExposed.com
——————————————————–
Timothy Sykes and his toadies such as “Jeremy” are very deceitful people.