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.

the aforementioned classics brought much to the table; lefevre’s books offered trading lessons never previously brought into print and darvas’ book gave a simple, trend-following system on how to beat the market which helped many future traders. _american hedge fund_, unfortunately, serves up an appetizer and dessert and calls it a full course meal.

the central theme for sykes’ book seems to be one of ego. most of his mistakes are admitted by the author because of his great ego, and many of his public actions appear to be caused by an insatiable appetite to become the next jim cramer. and while cramer had a 10+ year career as a serious hedge fund manager with significant funds under his control, sykes’ fund ran (the author has stated the fund has now been closed) for a few years with a mere pittance of capital compared to others.

the author details the well-recited tale of turning his bar mitzvah money into a significant grub stake during the end of the nasdaq bubble, by capitalizing, along with others, on the momentum boom. to the author’s credit, he learned that things had changed in 2000, and didn’t give back much of the hard-earned gains from the runup. instead, he started focusing on shorting stocks, which led to his still-favorite successful trading method of being short “unsustainable” runups in smaller cap stocks.

but for those looking to start up a hedge fund, sykes doesn’t get into too much detail on the real meat and bones behind creating a hedge fund. instead he spends most of his time complaining about SEC rules, touting his effort to get his name out to the public, and complaining about becoming highly leveraged in an illiquid pink sheet stock. this rookie mistake was compounded by continuing to deposit more money into the company. reading up on some of the published (and internet-accessible) material on the subject would have saved sykes hundreds of thousands of dollars, and us the dreariness of reading about it.

sykes keeps comparing his trading record to larger hedge funds, and then wondering why he doesn’t have access to larger investors. anyone who would study sykes’ record, even without access to the specific trades, would come up with one of two conclusions: either too much risk was taken on, or because the trading method is not scalable!

this story would have been much more interesting if sykes had delved more seriously into the hedge fund industry, but i suspect that he could only see it through the eyes of his tiny in-name-only hedge fund, which would not offer a clear view of the shenanigans of the industry.

who would enjoy this book? people who watch cnbc as a hobby or a social friend. voyeurs who like to imagine the successes of others being their own. and, sure, people who have never read a trading book before – or don’t know what things were like in the late 1990s – can gain some information here. it is well-written, even when it strays from the main focus of a trading book. but with the proliferation of so many better trading books and with this one having such a misleading title, why spend the money to get this one?

i have no doubt that sykes, when he sticks to his basic setups, is a successful trader. that’s not something many people can say. his story should have been one of many, a la _market wizards_ or _millionaire traders_, and not worthy of his own book. and until he removes his ego from of the equation and focuses on going beneath the superficial level, it will be difficult for people to take his actions seriously.

Beware People, whole lot of snake oil gonna be brewing at Sykes Shack……

Vic’s implosion, LTCM implosion were a treat to watch. Sykes is just a kid nobody cares about. Even Jesse Livermore Lost it all 3 times or maybe more..

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 !!

Uh oh….Here is a warning about Sykes/BullShit Express:

1) He closed the failed Cilantro Fund because it had an audited track record which documented his failures, then

2) Now, with the Fund closed he can BullShit his “trades” to newbies and suckers….(kind of like another marketslurper).
For example, Sykes will name a bunch of possible trades and then take credit for anything that works.

3) Sykes will not have any audited track record; so all aboard the BullShit Sykes express!

Maybe Timothy Sykes will find some type of work which will allow him to succeed; but trading and self-publishing books will not allow him to actually contribute to society, and Sykes admits that he continues to lose OPM.

After reading Sykes book, story can be summarised in a nutshell:

1) Timmy made money trading the NASDAQ bubble(along with everyone else), and he did not demonstrate good money management. Basically, “lucky monkey” effect….

2) Timmy has not made money trading in the last 5 years because his luck ran out, and the bad risk management.

3) Timmy is trying to make money off his ‘99-’02 track record, while lying about his trading failures over the last 5 years.

4) Timmy has averaged less than 1% annual return with his Sykes/Cilantro “hedge fund” since 2003. So, investors would have been better with interest bearing checking account.

5) Timmy lies that “..my Fund bleeding has stopped…”, but actually he lost his investors very large amounts of money throughout 2006-07, including continuous losses every month of Summer 2007. Sykes Fund “Bleeding” has not stopped, but rather continues as Sykes has lost over a third of his investors money since Jan 2006.

I just saved you the $20 book fee. Book is not worth reading even if you get it for free….

WRONG!: Sykes/Cilantro continues to lose investors money throughout summer 2007; DOWN again during Aug2007 and Jul2007; Down over -37% since Jan2006.

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 -36% since Jan 2006. His continous bad performance throughout 2007 shows that he does not learn from his mistakes; and readers can only cringe while watching Sykes slow motion demise.

I didn’t have to buy the book. It was a good read, but it did come across as an individual that got lucky, then the law of averages caught up with him, then he tried to milk his luck.

I give him credit for milking it. He’s doing a good job so far. If he was more colorful he could perhaps takeover that hack Cramer’s job on CNBC when his vein in his forehead finally bursts.