Timothy Sykes: All About the Day Trader and His Current Net Worth
Who is Timothy Sykes? The financial educator turned $12,000 of gift money into over a million as a college student.
Oct. 22 2021, Published 10:38 a.m. ET
In the world of day trading, Timothy Sykes became known for having taken a relatively small amount of gift money and turning it into an impressive sum as a college student. The Connecticut-born Sykes was a student at Tulane University when he began trading penny stocks and eventually founded his own hedge fund. What's Sykes’s net worth today?
Timothy Sykes
Investor, Financial Educator
Net worth: $15 million
Timothy Sykes is a hedge fund creator who used $12,000 in bar mitzvah gift money to become an expert in trading penny stocks. His initial $12,000 investment became over $2 million. Sykes founded Cilantro Fund Management LLC, a highly ranked hedge fund, while a senior at Tulane. He has authored a book and continues to work as a financial educator and investor.
Date of Birth: 1981
Communities Created: Investimonials.com, Profit.ly
Books: An American Hedge Fund
Website: timothysykes.com
Timothy Sykes’s hedge fund
Timothy Sykes founded hedge fund Cilantro Fund Management LLC as a college senior. He has said that he frequently skipped his classes at Tulane to focus on trading penny stocks.
The hedge fund he created was named the number-one short bias hedge fund on the BarclayHedge list from 2003 until 2006. In 2006, around age 25, Sykes was included in Trader Monthly's “Top 30 Under 30” list.
Sykes participated in a documentary, Wall Street Warriors, in which he discussed parts of his financial journey and investing strategies. He gained a fairly large following from that and ended up creating several media avenues where he shares his knowledge. Now, Sykes focuses on teaching others how to trade penny stocks via his YouTube channel, website, and blog articles.
Timothy Sykes financial education
Sykes states on his website that he grew frustrated as many reached out to him via email asking questions about his investment strategies. He knew that, as a hedge fund manager, he was restricted from sharing details on how he grew his investments.
Sykes decided to write openly about his investments in his autobiography, An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million As A Stock Operator and Created A Hedge Fund. Along with that book, he launched a media company and began creating a variety of financial content delivered through newsletters and DVD packages.
On his blog, Sykes has written of his attempt to recreate the success of his initial $12,000 investment growing into millions. He says he has currently reached above $211,000 in that challenge, and continually updates readers on his progress.
Sykes's net worth isn't precisely known. CelebrityNetWorth estimates that his net worth is $15 million, while WealthPersons says it's around $25 million.
Timothy Sykes posts photos of his "laptop lifestyle" on his social media channels.
Sykes has created two investment communities: Profit.ly, where about 84,000 members share their investment performance and trades openly, and Investimonials.com, where 65,000 investors share their reviews of over 25,000 financial products. Sykes compares the communities to Yelp or TripAdvisor but for finance.
Timothy Sykes’s criticism of Shaquille O’Neal
Sykes is known for publicly criticizing celebrities including Shaquille O’Neal and Justin Bieber for their involvement in “pump-and-dump” investing schemes.
He also admits to being somewhat of a no-holds-barred financial educator. He says he is “battling against those in finance who misinform” and is unashamed of having made a few enemies. In some of his videos, he says viewers can see “how my big mouth and brutal honesty make me millions but also get me into a little trouble.”
