Sykes is 7/8ths con man, 1/8th trader. One cannot of course go by his claims of how well he's actually trading. It can be gauged by the fact that the hedge fund he started went down in flames.

That he says he's pulling out of shorting means he must have already got burned. Like many other shorters he also must be worried about the SEC. But shorting is such a primary method in his "training" that he'll go back to it and lose his students even more money.