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Using Your Trading Process to Effectively Apply the System Rules
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Tharp's Thoughts
Inbox Mentoring
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Feature: A Good System Relies On A Robust Trading Process by Gabriel Grammatidis
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Tips: A Trade Handed to Us on a “Golden” Platter,
by D.R. Barton, Jr.
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GDPR: Read Our GDPR Statement
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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October 20-22
Saturday-Monday
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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October 23-24
Tuesday-Wednesday
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Are you considering attending the Forex Trading Systems workshop
in London, England this October?
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A Good System Relies On A Robust Trading Process
by Gabriel Grammatidis
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A few years back I started teaching a 3-day Forex Systems Workshop based on three systems I actively trade. The systems use a simple and precise set of pattern based rules so even novice traders can adopt the systems fairly quickly. If you trade systems based on visual pattern recognition, you need to learn to identify these patterns. With some experience, traders are able to discern a very good pattern from a below average quality pattern. The human brain is wired towards successful pattern recognition and the subconscious mind (right brain) is very good in this. Still, there is some learning required to teach your brain with pattern examples. This situation compares to professional chess players who build mental
libraries of memorized play situations.
Typically, attendees left the workshop with lots of enthusiasm to implement the three systems. The workshop included practical trade examples (screenshots) and live trade simulations (based on historical price data) so that students learned to recognize the chart patterns and apply the rules. I believed that this was what students needed to successfully implement everything back home. That was true — but I found out later — only true in part.
Professional traders reported that they were able to trade the systems consistently profitable within 1-2 months of attending the workshop. A good part of other students, however, reported that they were confronted with some physical and mental challenges and they got stuck in their implementation. Some people even mentioned that they ended up not trading the systems at all. Why were the results so different? Clearly, something was missing for some people!
If you have ever attended a trading workshop, you might have experienced something similar. What seemed so obvious and easy at the workshop now seems difficult back home with the subtleties and the details of trying to get the systems to work. As an instructor, I had to learn that understanding the rules and being able to recognize the visual trading patterns in the classroom are different from being able to actually execute trades at a monitor some time later.
I came to understand that for some traders, learning the “rules” alone did not complete the full picture. I realized that these traders were missing a complete Trading Process. Over several years, I had developed my own processes supporting my trading. As this was a gradual development process, I only began to understand over time how important it was for my results. Now I would say that your trading process is as important as the systems themselves. I am convinced now that without a good Trading Process, many people will have trouble trading any system efficiently in the short-term. With time, though, everyone can develop their own process. Students will be successful sooner at home using a robust & efficient Trading
Process from the start along with good systems. Obviously, full time traders have already created their own process which makes trading a new system easier and a faster experience than for novice traders.
Your Trading Process
What does a Trading Process look like and what are some of the activities? Traders are different and they develop their own routines to fit the needs of the systems they trade but here are parts of the Trading Process that everyone probably needs in some way:
a) Morning Preparation Process:
This is probably the most underrated activity for most novice traders. It is very important to get you into an ideal mental state for trading similar to how an athlete prepares for peak performance in competition. I focus on achieving a high consciousness state of Acceptance (well beyond anger and fear). Such a state makes it much easier to attain peak trading performance. Van teaches several ways to do this in his courses and workshops and I use my own variation. Experiment to find what works for you.
b) Higher Timeframe Analysis:
The entry chart is not the only chart to look at. Analyzing several higher timeframes (multi-timeframe analysis) will provide you important additional edges — especially if you trade the Forex market. Think about what you need to look for to add additional edges from the higher timeframes. There are multiple factors. For example, entering a long position that is supported by an uptrend in higher timeframes gives you an edge. In addition, determine stop-run levels, dynamic & static support and resistance levels and other important factors on those higher timeframes. This top-down analysis allows you to determine if a day trade has potential to transition into a swing trade possibly lasting for weeks or even months.
c) Short List Generation:
There are always good trading opportunities in the markets in several timeframes on any given day. How do you identify the best ones without getting confused or stressed out and then consequently drop into a mental state that is no longer good for trading? You want to end up with a short list of the best opportunities quickly. Think about applying certain activities that include rapid pattern detection, priority examination, and some filtering and elimination techniques. Initially, this will require a good amount of conscious effort (comparable to learning how to drive a car for the first time) but with some experience, you will execute this step quickly.
d) Opportunity Scanning:
Your scanning should be fast and efficient. It should prevent you from missing out on good trading opportunities and support you in minimizing your trading mistakes. I have found certain ways you can best utilize the unconscious mind so that patterns pop-up in front of my eyes with little or no conscious effort. In addition, organizing the charting platform with certain scanning templates helps a lot in my style of trading.
Use Your Trading Process to Capitalize On Your Edges
Trading systems taught in workshops already provide you multiple edges in the markets. To fully capitalize on those, however, you also need a robust Trading Process that works hand-in-hand with the trading systems’ rules. This combination makes trading much easier and makes your trading profitable sooner.
Good trading,
Gabriel Grammatidis
PS — At my upcoming Live Trading Workshop, I help traders learn through hands-on experience how to use 1) three proven systems, 2) an effective trading processes, and 3) a platform template. Students — and especially novice traders — typically leave the Live Trading Workshop with confidence. Having a process to follow and having already executed a good number of real time trades according to the rules makes all the difference.
Hear what students say about the Live Trading Workshop — Testimonials
I teach the next Live Trading Workshop and Forex Systems Workshop in London, UK in mid-October. See the section below for more details.
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About the Author: Gabriel Grammatidis is a successful full-time trader and graduate of the Super Trader program. He has extensive experience trading Forex and shares his knowledge at his Forex and Live Forex Trading workshops, held regularly at VTI.
For more information on the Busted Breakout psychological dynamics see his article in the Traders' magazine. Gabriel can be reached at gabriel "at" vantharp.com.
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A Message from Gabriel about the Forex Live Trading Workshop.
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My personal mission is to help others, provide useful information, and transfer knowledge so that you have a smooth path for rapid trader development. I have a strong belief that traders transition through certain learning stages and I very much enjoy supporting students make those transitions. With every workshop, I am learning how to be a better coach too. I enjoy staying in touch with attendees once the workshop is over and I offer various degrees of support after each event.
The Live Forex Trading workshop, following right after the Forex Systems Workshop, combines theory AND practice. The theoretical part is about the Trading Process and explains the trading activities you need to perform. The practical part shows you how to perform these activities and puts the student into the driving seat. Since I began teaching the 2-day Live Trading Workshop, students have reported that this workshop has been an integral part of their success. Usually about 2/3rds of the Forex System Workshop attendees stay for Live Trading and from them, I have seen an improvement in traders’ success rates.
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What are some of the activities of the trading process I teach?
Analysis and Trade Selection
On the first day of live trading, we focus on how to analyze Forex pairs in a top-down manner (with which for my systems is done only once a week) and bottom-up (the regular scan performed several times a day). The combination provides you a short list of good trade opportunities. The system rules quickly weed out many setups as they do not fulfill a rule while other setups require more evaluation to determine if they are good or not so good (during this step, some trade-off or discretion comes into play). Filtering the best setups from 26 currency pairs tradable in five different timeframes with three systems provides a lot of opportunities — just short of 400 potential opportunities for every scan. The trick here is to come up
quickly with about a dozen good to great trading opportunities to focus on.
Once you spot a good trade setup that fulfills one system’s rule-set, you learn how to frame the trade and how to begin the stalking process. Part of trade management is entry, initial stop placement and exit management. Individually, each of these is not a complex activity. Performed together in rapid progression, however, they can become challenging. Though I move in “slow-motion” while explaining the process, usually some confusion & frustration initially sets in on the first day. Why is this? Students need to process a lot of unfamiliar information and some loose ends are only starting to get connected. This is normal — and something I had to learn was normal. Through repetition, this clears up sometime on the
second day of workshop.
The second day is a day full of trading experiences! Scanning the market for certain visual patterns is only the first step, then additional rules need to confirm the pattern such as higher timeframe alignment. In addition to scanning, you learn how to frame, stalk and manage trades. You will do each of these a number of times while we also discuss trade ideas and evaluate emerging trades.
Live Trading Platform Support
As part of the Live Trading Workshop, you receive a custom-programmed template for my systems on the MT4 platform. The template includes custom built profiles, self-developed indicators and templates for scanning and analysis. This is the same scanning and analysis package I use on MT4 for my trading. You will install the package on your laptop at least by the day before the Live Trading Workshop so you are ready-to-trade on the first day – either live or in a demo account. We will resolve all technical related individual issues in advance of the workshop so as to avoid wasting valuable time. With the MT4 package running smoothly on your laptop, you can start right away to analyze charts and apply the rules — to trade the
systems. This is typically one of the bigger hurdles students are confronted with who have not attended the Live Trading Workshop.
Trading Results from Live Trading Workshop
August, 2018
During the most recent Live Trading Workshop, we identified 22 trade setups on the 5, 15, 60 and 240min charts from all three systems. After evaluation, we reduced this opportunity list to 14 good quality setup patterns. Of those, 5 patterns triggered entries which then generated an overall result of +2.8R for the day. We did not have a Big R multiple result, but we had two big learning days on how to actually trade the systems.
October, 2014
It was almost difficult to keep up with the trades which came one shortly after the other during this workshop. Overall, we had 18 trades during the two days with an overall result of +21.8R and an 89% win rate. Clearly these were great trading days.
November, 2017
This Live workshop was unique in that a rather small number of trades were taken (only 4 entry signals triggered), however, one trade really stood out. It was a System 3 (3TMA) trade, a long entry on the 15min EURCAD chart. The price penetrated several stop-run levels on the 240min chart so we were able to transition this day trade into a swing trade that finally ended with an overall result of +11.6R (it only got stopped out after the workshop).
If you plan to attend the upcoming Forex Systems Workshop, then I can recommend you join as well the 2-day Live Trading Workshop. Unfortunately, novice traders tend to shy away from live trading workshops as they think only experienced traders can learn much. Actually, the opposite is quite true. Novice traders learn the most and will experience lots of A-HA moments. One student mentioned that he fully understood the inner logic of the patterns only after having attended the Live Trading Workshop. In any case, the Live Trading Workshop is fun and you will learn a lot whether you are a novice or experienced trader.
Remember that some students like to get a head start by purchasing the Busted Breakout System Home Study course. These students walk through the door on the first morning already understanding my System One. This also allows you to use the $600 coupon off the workshop so that the Elearning Course ends up only costing $395. If you were to also register for the Live Trading Workshop, you can deduct another $500 off the price of
the live sessions – effectively making your home study course free. It provides you a great benefit and I do not want you to miss it.
Thank you for taking a moment to read my thoughts about the Live Trading Workshop. During the Forex Systems Workshop, I thoroughly explain and demonstrate three excellent Forex systems. For many, perhaps that is all you need. If not, the Live Trading Workshop is a value added step that can’t be matched.
Come and join!
I'm looking forward meeting you soon in person!
Gabriel
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A Trade Handed to Us on a “Golden” Platter
by D.R. Barton, Jr.
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Pierre DuPont, one of the famous family heads of the DuPont Company, bought huge parcel of land just across the Delaware line in Pennsylvania early in the 20th century. Pierre was one of the true captains of industry in this historic period of high growth in the U.S. Early in his career, the MIT trained chemist helped create the first smokeless gunpowder. He moved on to be the president of the DuPont Company (for a scant five years) and was instrumental in the early meteoric growth of General Motors (GM). How's that? Well, to protect DuPont's investment in the failing GM, Pierre reluctantly became president of the company for four years in the early 1920s. By the time he resigned as GM’s chairman of the board, GM was the world’s largest company. So I guess that
investment did pretty well …
I mention Pierre DuPont because last night I went to a Wood Brothers concert on the grounds of his former estate, Longwood Gardens. Longwood Gardens is a world-famous botanical garden that Pierre fashioned after some of the classic gardens that he saw in his travels. Thanks to strong non-profit organization that runs it now, the former estate remains a mainstay for training botanists and delighting tourists from around the globe.
One of their interesting summer attractions is the famous water lily display. It was the Longwood Hybrid Water Platters, however, that caught my eye yesterday. Here’s a picture I took showing the massive leaves of these plants:
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Individual leaves can grow up to eight feet in diameter (the largest one in this picture is right at 6 feet across) and they are almost startling when you first see them. Which brings me to the point of my botanical tirade — sometimes the market hands us something equally startling, something hard to believe is even real. But when the market hands you a great trade on a “golden” platter (or a gigantic lily pad) — you must have the confidence to act in the moment. That decisive action in the heat of the moment makes a great trade.
Here’s the completion of the chart I showed you last week in the “Nature Abhors a Parabola” article:
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Here’s what I said about the setup last week:
“My belief system is that parabolic moves down usually give a quick bounce back — and that’s what I’m playing. I don’t have the same expectation for a prolonged move in the other direction like I do when we get a parabolic move into a blow-off top. So for all you gold bugs out there, the intermediate bottom may be in, but we need a lot more price action to the upside for a technical confirmation.”
As a result, I took triple-digit profits on the call options, double-digit profits on the shares, and I will keep an eye out for further technical indications that gold has, in fact, reached an intermediate bottom.
If you found this trade set-up compelling and played along, let me know. I always enjoy hearing your thoughts and comments! Please send those to me using drbarton “at” vantharp.com
Great trading and God bless you,
D. R.
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About the Author: A passion for the systematic approach to the markets and lifelong love of teaching and learning have propelled D.R. Barton, Jr. to the top of the investment and trading arena. He is a regularly featured analyst on Fox Business Networks’ Varney & Co. TV show (catch him Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. EST), on Bloomberg Radio Taking Stock and MarketWatch's Money Life Show. He is also a regular guest analyst on CNBC World, CNBC's Closing Bell, Fox Business Network’s Cavuto Coast to Coast and Making Money with Charles Payne and the China Global Television Network. His articles have appeared on SmartMoney.com, MarketWatch.com and Financial Advisor magazine. You may contact D.R. at "drbarton" at
"vantharp.com."
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Presented by R. J. Hixson
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September 14-16
Friday-Sunday
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The How to Develop Winning Systems Workshop teaches you what you need to know to develop your own system. The material you will learn is not market or time-frame specific. So whether you trade stocks, futures, currencies, gold, etc., or
whether you place 50 trades per day or 50 trades per year, you will learn all of the components that work in any system. With this knowledge you can both modify existing systems to fit you or the market type better, or master your own system development. Two locations to choose from, Cary, NC in September and London, England in October!
Only a few seats remain in the U.S. September event. If you're considering taking this workshop register now before it is also sold out.
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Presented by Libby Adams and RJ Hixson
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September 18-21
Tuesday-Friday
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Peak Performance 202 is SOLD OUT! Look for the next event January 2019.
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October 2018 - LONDON, ENGLAND
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Presented by Van Tharp,
with RJ Hixson
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October 12-14
Friday-Sunday
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Do any of the following sound like you?
- Are you always looking for a new trading system? Or, are you always trying to improve the one you have?
- Do you find your trade setups never quite fit all of your criteria so you have trouble entering trades?
- Do you get anxious about the market or get anxious about risking your money so that you have trouble pulling the trigger?
- Do you get excited and ignore your rules or do you get distracted and fail to follow your system's rules?
- Does a losing trade take your energy away from the next trade or conversely, does a winning trade make you confident about the next trade?
- Is your trading (or your life?) ruled by fear, anger, greed, or shame?
- Are you constantly losing money?
- Do you lack a strong plan to guide your trading or do you fail to follow the plan you created?
- Do you have a performance ceiling where you fall apart or stop doing well consistently? Does your account reach a certain size and then it plateaus or you start losing money at that point?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are experiencing some form of self-sabotage. But don’t worry, these are some very common patterns for traders and you can overcome them in order to reach your potential. This workshop will help you identify and resolve the underlying conflicts causing these patterns — as well as leave you with the tools to address conflicts that come up in the future for you.
It's been Van Tharp's cornerstone workshop for over three decades. Read more to learn the benefits you will walk away with.
Peak Performance is also a very important workshop to put on your calendar if you want to qualify for and apply to the Super Trader Program.
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October 16-18
Tuesday-Thursday
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The How to Develop Winning Systems Workshop teaches you what you need to know to develop your own system. The material you will learn is not market or time-frame specific. So whether you trade stocks, futures, currencies, gold, etc., or
whether you place 50 trades per day or 50 trades per year, you will learn all of the components that work in any system. With this knowledge you can both modify existing systems to fit you or the market type better, or master your own system development.
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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October 20-22
Saturday-Monday
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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October 23-24
Tuesday-Wednesday
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The Theory: All You Need to Know About Forex
Gabriel will spend most of the workshop teaching his trend-following systems. The first half day is spent to go over the specifics of trading the Forex market and cover such topics as:
- Why trade Forex?
- What are the advantages and drawbacks of trading Forex versus other instruments?
- What are the main market characteristics, and who are the Forex market participants?
- What methods work best in the Forex market?
- All you need to know about Forex trading sessions and the currency pairs.
- How are Forex chart characteristics different than stocks or futures?
- What do you look for in a Forex broker? What do you avoid?
- Why Forex may actually be the best market for new traders to learn trading.
- What are the trading edges that work in Forex?
- The Method
Gabriel teaches three specific trading systems. All three are trend-based; you can see the price action patterns in the price charts. His systems can be traded in various timeframes and can be traded across a wide range of currency pairs. Attendees of Gabriel’s workshops enjoy swing trading the systems using primarily 5-min ,15-min, 60-min and daily candle charts. The trades tend to evolve over a timeframe of anywhere from several hours to a couple of days (or even weeks, in the case of strong trends).
Two additional days of live forex trading side-by-side with Gabriel is available as well for hands on trading experience.
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October 26-28
Friday-Sunday
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In this workshop, you begin to build your plan that includes specific, actionable steps you can begin as soon as you get back home. Here are some of the benefits of attending the workshop:
- Assess your beliefs about trading and about yourself so you can leverage your useful beliefs and eliminate the ones that are holding you back.
- Learn how to steer your entire system development process through your objectives.
- Find the key ingredient that most traders and investors are missing in their objectives that will make you thrive financially.
- Create a business plan with 3 trading strategies compatible with the big picture so your trading results are consistently profitable.
- Learn the 8 critical areas of contingency planning that most traders find out about the hard way (i.e., the expensive way). Developing plans for contingencies minimizes the risks to your trading business that could otherwise wipe you out.
- Discover how to leverage the strengths of your personality type and minimize your personal challenges to improve your trading.
- Learn how to cultivate the most important attitude required for successful trading.
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Presented by Ken Long
Monday includes instruction plus live trades
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November 10-11-12
Saturday-Monday
Note schedule change.
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Exciting New Work from Van Tharp
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November
15-17
Thursday-Saturday
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FREE Book!
We pay for the book, you just pay for shipping.
When you add the free book to an item already being shipped there is generally no extra shipping charge (of course, depending on your location).
Read Van’s Latest Book —
TRADING BEYOND THE MATRIX
The Red Pill for Traders and Investors
Eleven traders tell their stories about transforming
their trading results and lives, in this 400 plus page book.
Below is a brief video on how powerful this book is to traders.
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GDPR COMPLIANCE:
The European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018 and is designed to allow individuals to more effectively control their personal data. At The Van Tharp Institute (IITM, INC) , client information is private and confidential; we do not share, trade, or sell to anyone. We never have. You may ask us at any time to unsubscribe. We keep your information safe. If you’d like access to your information just ask. You receive this information from us because you opted into the Van Tharp newsletter either through direct registration or registration through our Tharp Trader Test.
102A Commonwealth Court | Cary | NC | 27511
Cary, NC Workshop Information
For a list of nearby hotels for our Cary, North Carolina locations,
click here.
Book your flight arriving to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU).
When traveling to a three-day course, it's best to arrive the evening before.
To help determine your arrival and departure times, see:
Questions? Click Here to Ask Van...
CONTACT US
This is a supplement to our subscription based newsletter, Tharp's Thoughts.
800-385-4486 * 919-466-0043 * Fax 919-466-0408
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