Timothy Sykes

Timothy Sykes
Born	1981 Orange, Connecticut
Residence	Miami Beach, Florida
Alma mater	Tulane University
Website
http://www.timothysykes.com/

Timothy Sykes is an American stock trader, entrepreneur, and penny stock expert.^[1][2] He is best known for turning his bar mitzvah money into over $1 million by day trading in-between classes at Tulane University.^[3][4]

Career

In 1999, while still in high school, Sykes took $12,415 he had received in bar mitzvah gift money and began day trading penny stocks.^[5] He would turn this initial investment into over $1.65 million before the age of 21.^[6] After posting losses of more than 36% between January 2006 and July 2007 (while the overall market was up 25%) Sykes shut down his fund.^[7]

Sykes attended Tulane University and graduated in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a minor in business.^[8] While at Tulane, Sykes routinely skipped class to day trade.^[9] In 2003, during his senior year, he founded Cilantro Fund Management LLC, a short bias hedge fund.^[10][11]

BarclayHedge named Cilantro Fund Management LLC the #1 ranked short bias fund from 2003-2006.^[12] In 2006 Trader Monthly named Sykes one of the "Top 30 Under 30" traders in the market,^[13] although the author of that list later called Sykes their "most embarrassing by-product".^[7]

Sykes released An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund in 2007.^[14] The book chronicles Sykes' rise from a college student day trading penny stocks to the early-20s multimillionaire hedge fund manager and the lessons learned throughout.^[15]

In 2008 Sykes decided to recreate his initial investing success by again starting with $12,415.^[16][17] He named the attempt Transparent Investment Management (TIM).^[3][18] After two years, Sykes turned the initial sum into $90,368 and was the #1 ranked trader on Covestor.^[19][20]

In 2012, Sykes created "Miss Penny Stock" a financial beauty pageant to a representative for his brand and company.^[21][22]

Teaching and other projects

Sykes currently works as a financial activist and educator, with more than 2,000 students spread over 60 countries.^[23][24]

In 2009, Sykes launched Investimonials.com: a website devoted to collecting user reviews of financial services, videos, and books, as well as financial brokers.^[25]

Sykes co-founded Profit.ly in 2011, a social service with more than 20,000 users that provides stock trade information online.^[26] Sykes said the service serves two purposes: "creating public track records for gurus, newsletter writers and students and allowing everyone to learn from both the wins and losses of other traders to benefit the entire industry.”^[27]

In December 2013, CNN Money featured Sykes and his student Tim Grittani on the website's homepage.^[1] Under Sykes's guidance and coaching, Grittani turned $1,500 into over $1 million in 3 years.^[28] Grittani was Sykes's second student to earn over $1 million following Sykes's strategies.^[1][28]

Media

Sykes was featured in the TV program Wall Street Warriors, which aired on MOJO.^[29] He writes for AOL Finance and TheStreet.com.^[30][31]

He has appeared as a guest on CNBC, CNN, Neil Cavuto (Fox), ABC's 20/20, CBS Sunday Morning, Oprah and Friends Radio, and others.^{[32][33][34][35][36]}

Notable stories

Sykes has also exposed various pump and dump schemes, including two which implicated major celebrities.^[37][38]

In 2009, Sykes publicly accused soap-sponge company SpongeTech of being "a blatant pump and dump" scam.^[39] The New York Post would later pick up on Sykes' suspicions and run a story about the accusations.^[40] Both Sykes and The New York Post would be sued by SpongeTech. A week later SpongeTech's CEO was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and obstruction of justice.^[39][41]

In 2010, Sykes drew attention after exposing Shaquille O'Neal's involvement in a "pump and dump" scam with NXT Nutritionals Holdings.^[37] The controversy surrounded O'Neal's paid endorsement on a mailer to potential NXT investors, and the stock's 76% crash a month after.^[37]

Sykes later criticized Justin Bieber and his involvement in a similar pump and dump scheme involving Bieber's partnership with Options Media Group in 2011.^[38][42]

References