Mr. Hankey And Richard Nixon Are Teaming Up For Your Benefit!

In recent posts like THIS, you might’ve noticed some small cartoons featured on several stock charts—namely Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo, of South Park fame and Richard Nixon, of “I am not a crook” fame, exemplifying the kind of crappy and crooked companies out there.

Like my blogging adventure, these cartoons are just starting to help make this stuff more understandable / visually stimulating. So, I need your help in finding small pictures of cartoons and pictures that represent common themes such as: so hot right now, too popular, indecisive, volatile, about to take a dive, full of fluff, heavily gossiped, solid company (yeah right, when are we ever gonna find a volatile stock with that quality!), poor management, cool products, bright future etc.

So, let’s see what you guys got, please help this overworked blogger out and link away!

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Two Great Book Reviews And A DVD Review To Boot!

I absolutely love getting emails like this:

“Tim, I just wanted to thank you for An American Hedge Fund and PennyStocking. My boyfriend was the first to read your incredible book and now my boys, Charlie, 6, and Julian, 4, can’t get enough of it; they make me read it to them every night! And your DVD, oh my, it’s so taught us so much; so now we’re not afraid of any recession because as you say “you can profit from betting against companies managed by all the idiots on Wall Street!” And thanks to your strategies, we’ve already made a few thousand dollars in one month through short selling some of these surging microcaps! So, thank you, thank you, thank you, you’ve changed our lives and I’ll be forever grateful!”

Sincerely,

Michelle Casey

And check out the hilarious pics that were attached:

Not to be outdone, I got another great book review from a highly respected investment advisor, Ulli Niemann, aka The Wall Street Bully. Besides having a badass blogger nickname, Ulli advises his clients in ETF and mutual fund investing so I really had no idea how he’d take my wild journey. Guess it’s a good thing he’s a big believer in The American Dream! Here are some of my fav quotes from his review:

“Here’s a man who definitely learned from his shortcomings and is willing let the world know about it by sharing them in his book.”

“The knowledge he gained from several years in the trenches represents wisdom that I have found also applicable to the world of trend tracking.”

“Any trader or investor should adhere to Tim’s findings. This book is a fast and fun read, and I couldn’t put it down.”

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Did I Do That? Pump & Dump Exposes And Revolutionary Finance Websites

With my CNOA pump and dump expose last night and it’s 25% tankage today, I gotta wonder:

Possibly, probly, who knows…too bad I wasn’t short the stock myself—gotta learn to short sell these suckers BEFORE I chop ‘em to pieces, a la business models of Citron Research and Mark Cuban’s ShareSleuth.com

Nahhhhhhhh a.) it didn’t fit my pattern and b.) it’s more fun to write brutally truthful articles about stocks in which you have no positions, you do it just cuz it’s the right thing to do

I’ll tell you one thing I definitely did do right, that’s hiring and tirelessly working with Pallian to design the new site, which is looking redonkulous! I mean the guy is an Indian Picasso, he should be called Ghandcasso or Picandhi. To you lucky 50, advertisers and bloggers, the beta invites are being emailed out, so def. let me know what you think—what you like and don’t like, the site is for you—and for everyone else, you gotta wait til May 1st and settle for clicking the little thumbnail below:

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It’s My Birthday And I’ll Send Out Beta Invites If I Want To!

Today is my 27th birthday , woooo hooooo! Seems like just the other day I was this crazy looking kid in the picture below:

Guess which one is me–yah, that pic alone is enough crazy celebration for one day, back to business. Unlike every other year, I’m not doing anything special—got a bunch of blog posts to write, ideas to research, radio interviews tonight and an early morning flight to beautiful Buffalo tomorrow (speaking at U of B’s business school tomorrow night if you’re in the area!) Yup, I’m one motivated SOB—this ain’t about the $, it’s about cutting through all the industry BS and teaching you guys to profit from it—never forget that.

Instead of getting cool presents—I don’t need much, all the expensive stuff I’ve ever got has broken, been lost or I’ve become bored with rather quickly—I thought I’d give you guys something—to the first 50 people who leave a comment on this post will get access to a special sneak preview of my new website, which, no more f%#$en excuses will debut on May 1, 2008, and will feature the first episode of the long-awaited / much-hyped TIMtv!

Yah, I know the website was supposed to be done today, but there’s just too much cool stuff out there and since I’m hoping this new site will outlast this current one (what’s it been 2 months?) and the last one (4 months) (ahhh my commitment issues are getting worse!), I just have to add everything, Super Shredder-style.

So, go on, leave a comment and open the present I’m gonna email you!

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I’m Hungover And I Don’t Care Who Knows It!

I’ve got nothing much to say right now and thanks to last night’s crazy Gawker-hosted party, I’ve got a pounding headache and I’m trying to watch the only 3 volatile low priced stocks at the moment—COIN, USU, YTBLA—but none are ideal…yet.

Also got a ton of chores to do. Uhhhhh. Screw it—I’m no use to anyone like this, I’m gonna go take a nap.

That’s the advantage of being a rich /self-employed and self-centered trader. I’ll be back with something witty/educational later today

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The Joke That Is Financial Commentary: Some Frauds, Morons, Comedians and Marketers You Should Beware Of

As bad as corporate management, brokers, and value investors are, financial commentators and journalists are some of the scariest monsters out there. Similarly, they pretend to ALWAYS know what they’re talking about, while NEVER disclosing their audited track records or personal trades and investments…because the truth hurts–they suck. More often than not, they will lose you money if you listen to their advice. This picture is an accurate rendering of those who dishonor this industry:

This game is BS, we should want more–we deserve more–and my newfound goal in life is to right this wrong. Over the next few months, I’ll be adding many names to this list:

1. What kind of sick and twisted SOB buys the Adword phrase “Timothy Sykes” when they are no way shape or form affiliated with me WHATSOEVER. Scumbag and probable fraud Ross Jardine, that’s who. The schmuck links my name to a shady shady shady sales page—don’t buy into that BS. How is that even legal? Damn that really pisses me off!

No idea if his stuff works, but based on his manipulative advertising practices, the 1-page sales sheet featuring a stock he claims to have called that trades less than 500 shares/day (yes, five hundred shares), common sense and industry workings, I’m gonna bet he’s a fraud. He should probly be in prison. (Feel free to prove me wrong RJ, just setup a blog and let’s see your results day in, day out, c’mon, what are you chicken, balk balk balk, yeah that’s what I thought you scumbag)
 

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Short Selling Stocks: Plays Galore Limited By Absurd Pattern Day Trading Rule aka SEC Reign Of Terror

As I posted early this morning, there were lots of potential shorts today, but I had to be extra-choosy due to the SEC’s reign of terror over accounts under $25k (explanation down below).

Awoke early and reserves shares of my favs—placing my sell limit orders waaay high, intent on lowering them if and when any became good plays:

-300 ASTI @16.99 LMT
-300 GU @16.99 LMT
-1000 BPAX @5.99 LMT
-1000 REED @4.99 LMT
-1000 QBIK @3.99 LMT

Didn’t even need to reserve any COT, it was listed as easy to borrow. But my top pick was REED, and I was hoping—somewhat naively—to get a morning spike to short into…no such luck. It went down quickly, bounced, down again, blah whatever, volume for the day was 60k, spread between bid and ask was 20-40 cents, no thanks. Next!

BPAX—no morning spike there either—disappointing. Had the chance to short my 1,000 shares into a quickly disappearing block at $4.39, but I hate shorting morning droppers, too high risk of reversal, so I hesitated and it passed me by, on its way to $4.10-ish. Missed out on $200 profit, but if it’d held $4.39, it could’ve easily spiked, risk of $200-$400 loss, not a good risk-reward. As evidenced by its surprising afternoon comeback all the way to unchanged—this is not a typical hype play. Next!  

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Obituaries: CYGT aka The Stock That Killed My Hedge Fund

Today, Cygnus (CYGT), a long-time Ticketmaster-wanna-be, lost their long-time battle against bankruptcy. They had been struggling ever since their first brush back in early 2006, barely clinging to life as if their leader was Terri Schiavo, but today, they finally succumbed to Chapter 11, the most common ailment among penny stocks.

The company, founded in 2001, is best known for their role in bringing down my hedge fund, Cilantro Fund Partners, LP—accounting for a roughly 35% loss—and causing me endless grief from the joke that is “the financial community”.

As detailed in my book An American Hedge Fund, in mid-2004, after nearly six years of uninterrupted six-figure annual profits, my ego and real world inexperience—aided by a top notch presentation delivered by the then CFO, a family friend—led me to invest 10% of my fund in this privately-held company.

At first, everything was rosy—  

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Sykes’ Saturday Seven: March 22nd, 2008 Edition

Techcrunch might be right about Inspectd.com being fun and addicting, but it sets a very very very very very very very bad example. The problem lay in the fact that pattern recognition is only part of the game, you also have to understand the variables that align to CREATE those patterns. Comparing a 100% one-week stock price jump based on a positive earnings report—meaningful, further strength likely—is very very very very very very very different from the same kind of jump based on two ANALyst upgrades and a newsletter mention—hype, reversal probable. Exemplified by the pic below:

Check out THIS sweet 20 minute podcast talking to some other traders

Also check out THIS interview I did, chastising those pathetic people who can’t pay their debts

Be sure to visit some TIMlinks, I visit the top 5 regularly cuz they’re actually good

Have you seen the new JPMorgan/Bear logo? IT ROCKS! (gratzie Lindzon)  

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