Timothy Sykes - Trader for the people / master blogger.

Yesterday I decided to spend time researching successful blogs. My search started on Michael Dunlops Income Diary blog and a post he had made called Top earning blogs - Make money online Blogging.

This is where I came across a name I was familiar with - Timothy Sykes. I recognised the name because I'm following him on Twitter, but his posts always seemed arrogant and designed to p*ss people off, in fact a couple of times I'd nearly 'unfollowed' because I generally don't buy into all that hyped up American b*llsh*t.

I was stunned to see that Dunlop's post claimed that Timothy Sykes' was generating $80,000 per month from his Blog alone.

Now I was intrigued, who was this guy and how was he making so much from his website. I decided to figure out what Timothy Sykes was all about. Was he 'All American Brash' or was there more to this apparently very successful individual than his public persona?

If you've not heard of him - a very short precise. Sykes turned "$12,415 Bar Mitzvah Gift money into a fully audited pre-tax sum of $1.65 million from 1999 to 2002". He did this by shorting penny stocks. He has a very vocal dislike of Wall Street, regularly claiming that 'Wall Street is full of BS'. He ran an ultimately unsuccessful hedge fund from 2006 to 2007, which he is very candid about, before successfully returning to the market using the same principals he used with his Bar Mitzvah money.

He now runs what appears to be a very successful trading business.

Sykes is very open about his successes and failures, a quality you can not help but admire. Certainly being open about failures is not commonplace on Wall St. He is also open about his trading strategy, which is profiting when stocks lose value. He operates in the pennystock arena - a place he claims is still very corrupt. By scanning news sources for information that is purely designed to falsely inflate stock prices, he waits for the surge and then bets that the price will fall (by shorting the stock). And by all accounts it's a very successful (and legal) strategy.

I watched some video footage of Sykes and there is no doubt that the guy is impressive. He's been featured on the likes of CNN and WallSt.Net. I watched a couple of his TV interviews. It was clear from these interviews that his strategy did not sit well with those interviewing him. And yet he delivered a compelling and honest case for his strategy.

In one interview on CNN (recorded sometime in 2008) when asked if Wall St had been too greedy, his reply was amazing, he stated that these guys had NOT been greedy enough - and not because he was supporting them, but because he was criticising them! He was criticising them for being lazy, which he stated was the problem with America. Lazy because their strategies to make money were fundamentally flawed, lazy because their research had not been meticulous enough and lazy because ultimately, they had failed.

What Sykes was saying is that greed drives innovation, greed drives our motivation and that ultimately greed was not good but that greed was GREAT!

He was right, but surely stating on prime time TV that Wall Street "had not been greedy enough" and that Main Street had also been to blame for the current economic crisis because they were "flipping houses and taking on leverage" would anger Joe Public?

Apparently not, If Sykes is making anywhere near $80,000 via his blog (which I have no reason to suspect to be false) then that is a serious number of eye-balls and the guy has a big following.

Has he has become the Voice of the Public?

He is clearly a very astute businessman with much more to him than simply his stock picking . His plan is a good one - to take $12,000 (which was the size of his Bar Mitzvah Gift) and use all the same techniques he used before to turn this into $1.65m. Except this time he plans on sharing his success with others. This was another piece of PR genius. Here is a guy who can turn $12k into $1.65m and he is prepared to let us all know how to do it. He's not suggesting that you need a starting account of $100k, he is saying that with $12k, you can make money on the stock market.

In the first 6 months he was 60% up (the market was 20% down). This may not sound like he is going to make anywhere near the $1.65m he made first time around, but it's a lot closer than you think. In fact if profits are re-invested and he can make 120% per year, then $12k becomes $1.65m in 7 years (as opposed to the 4 years it took first time around).

Is Tim Sykes the real deal or is he simply another guy selling an unrealistic dream, taking money from the great unwashed in the process. Currently I believe he is the real deal. He is honest and open and more importantly he is making returns. His marketing is great, he hates Wall St and they hate him, but he's beating them at their own game and at the same time helping the little guy make money too. All the while he's raking in millions himself!

What happens when his systems starts to fail (as they surely will) will be interesting. Will he jump for cover and disappear off into the sunset along with his investors money, or will he remain open and honest, explaining that all systems fail from time to time, and to urge his investors to keep following his signals?

Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain, I will be keeping a close eye on this guy and will be enjoying his journey in the process. Who knows, the AtticMan may even sign-up to his system!