Timothy Sykes is full of bullship

[Edit 8/18/2009 – Since writing this article I have changed from Tim Sykes’ biggest critic to his biggest fan. Please see this article on my new trading blog about how my opinion  of Tim Sykes changed.]

Timothy Sykes, the boy wonder who turned $12,000 into $1.65 million while still a teenager, has abandoned his hedge fund Cilantro to re-create his day-trading achievement in full view of the internet on his new blog. Sykes is best described as young, brash, egotistical, and annoying. Of course, an impartial observer would describe me in much the same way. Timmay and I also share the preference for shorting stocks over buying them. But rather than being two peas in a pod, we are polar opposites: Tim is the quintessential short-term trader and I am the archetypal buy-and-hold value investor.

I am not like some people who say that day trading is a crock and that it never works. It can work for some people some of the time. The problem with Tim Sykes is that he encourages others to follow in his footsteps by buying his $297 DVD trading seminar. There are several problems with buying a trading system such as Tim’s:

  1. Even assuming that some strategy works, if enough people follow that strategy it will cease to work. This is exactly what happened to Richard Dennis, the noted commodities trader, who famously lost tens of millions of dollars in 1988 after his trend-following strategy stopped working. Sykes of course likes trading microcap stocks with relatively thin markets. This means that his system is especially prone to break when too many people start using it.
  2. Trading takes a lot of time; this is particularly true for Timmay’s day trading and momentum trading. Most people have jobs, and very few people have enough in savings and enough trading talent to make a lot of money trading. So for most people, time learning to trade would be better spent nurturing their career or working a second job.
  3. Trading any system takes incredible self-restraint and guts. Very few people have the self-control to be able to stick to a system even when it is not making money. This is even harder if a trader buys a system (say, from Tim Sykes), because it is harder to become truly convinced in the system if that trader did not invent it himself or herself.

Traders and investors should steer clear of Sykes’ DVD and his trading system. Those few who could be good traders would likely do better developing their own system rather than following Tim’s. Of course, I find Tim amusing, so I encourage you to read his blog for its amusement value.

Disclosure: I had no connection to any person mentioned at the time I first posted this. Since I first published this post I have bought many of Sykes’ products, successfully used his trading system, and am now an affiliate of his (earning a commission on anyone who buys his DVDs using a link from my site).

67 thoughts on “Timothy Sykes is full of bullship”

  1. Great thread. Not a Tim or Michael but love the mental stimulation. If anyone makes it this far down you might be dedicated enough to learn from Tim. I only say that because this game trading stocks requires dedication. Like earlier Tim said money flows from the non-dedicated to the dedicated. Tim and his challenge students (I’m one) are the dedicated who stand a chance at taking millions of $ following a rules based system and cutting losses quickly. Thank you.

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