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Save money by attending our Sideways Workshop and Forex Workshops together this August!
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Tharp's Thoughts
Inbox Mentoring
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Feature: July 15th Update on Cryptocurrencies, Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
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Tips: Blockchain as a SystemJuly 15th Update on Cryptocurrencies,
Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
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GDPR: Read Our GDPR Statement
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Spend 14 Days With Van and His Colleagues This October In London!
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This October Van Tharp brings 5 of his most powerful workshops to the UK. If you are interested in transforming the way you trade you won't want to miss the following:
Peak Performance 101 - Oct. 12-14
How To Develop Winning Trading Systems That Fit You - Oct. 16-17
Forex Trading - Oct. 20-22
Live Forex Trading - Oct. 23-24
Blueprint for Trading Success - Oct. 26-28
SAVE WITH OUR COMBO DEALS!
Scroll down to our workshop schedule for more information on each of these classes.
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July 15th Update on Cryptocurrencies
Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
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In May, Bloomberg announced that they had formed a cryptocurrency index. There are several significant things about this index. First, Bloomberg only caters to institutional clients. An index of this nature is the first step to widespread institutional involvement. And finally, either in 2018 or early 2019 we will see 1) ETFs springing up for both BTC and ETH; 2) the SEC will eventually end its war against ICOs (which they say are offers of securities because of their promise of profits); 3) regulated exchanges for cryptoassets; 4) widespread institutional movement into the cryptoasset markets with an eventual market cap probably in the neighborhood of $20
Trillion. At some point the taxing authorities will start treating cryptos as securities or currencies, which will make the taxing laws much more favorable. Much of this could happen before the end of this year and as it starts, the scare tactics of the institutions will start to end (as they will have accumulated their large positions at cheap prices) and the crypto market will skyrocket again.
The CBOE has applied to the SEC for permission to offer a bitcoin ETF. This one is virtually assured to be approved although it might not take place until 2019. My guess is that the CBOE would want to open such an ETF when a bull market gets going.
Let’s take a look at the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index. The index tracks ten major cryptoassets: Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), EOS (EOS), Ripple (XRP), and three privacy coins DASH (DASH), Z-Coin (ZEC), and Monero (XRM). The index started in May at 1000. It was as high as 1020.73 on May 4th and as low as 537.29 on June 29th. Here is a graph of the index to date. It’s in a clear downtrend and it’s probably dangerous to invest in the asset class until we at least have two months of stable prices.
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The table below shows Bitcoin, a 1st generation crypto asset, plus two second generation crypto assets ETH and NEO, and two third generation crypto assets (Iota and Skycoin). BTC is basically just a ledger. Whereas Ether and Neo both allow of smart contracts to exist on the ledger. Finally, IOTA and Skycoin are important because they combine smart contracts with huge scalability and zero transaction cost. Just because something is third generation, however, doesn’t mean it will be the one to survive and dominate. I’ve also added the Jan 15, 2017 price to put this crash into perspective.
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Date of the All-Time High Closes
*Dec 16, 2017 ** Jan 13, 2018 ***Jan 15, 2018 **** Dec 8, 2017 ***** Dec 29, 2017
The second table includes the market cap for cryptocurrencies that includes the percentage of Bitcoin of the total market cap, the percentage of market cap for the top five cryptocurrencies, and the number of cryptocurrencies listed.
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Notice that the market cap on July 15 has fallen 69.25% since January 8th when we first started doing the crypto monthly update.
Yahoo Finance lists prices for 100 cryptocurrencies so I can run some of my normal studies on the data. I’m only looking at those coins for which there is at least 100 days of data — which does not include every crypto in the top 100 list by market cap.
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1 Bitcoin was as high as 90% of the market cap of all cryptos at the beginning of 2017 to as low as 32% at the top of the market. Part of the difference is that there are now over 1,500 cryptocurrencies.
2 The was the peak of the crypto market in terms of market cap. Data via Tama Churchouse, Asia West Investor email on 4/11/18
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These cryptos had the top Market SQN® scores (100 days) on July 15, 2018. At the moment, there are two crypto assets with Market SQN scores over 1.0 – Digibyte and Monaco. The next three all have Market SQN scores that are over 0.9: Zcoin, OX, and Decred.
Our former #1 coin, BNC, dropped down to #19 and a neutral rating of 0.52. The following coins seem to be remaining strong, Decred, EOS, OX, and Zcoin. Last month, 20 of the 95 cryptos ranked had positive numbers. This month we are up to 40 positive cryptos of the 95.
We are also working on a crypto screener somewhat like our world model for ETFs. Here I have a different listing for the top 15 and the bottom 15. In the next few months, we expect to integrate this information, but for now I’ll just report both sets of data.
Here are the top and bottom 15 cryptos in our other screener.
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We have also classified the coins by type. This is a very preliminary version which we expect to improve with time but ere is the first set of classifications. ETH also fits into the USD Exchangeable while LTC (right now at least) is not — at least on Coinbase where most US Citizens exchange dollars for cryptos.
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Most of the primary cryptos that we follow are near their yearly lows. We don’t have an overall crypto index but if we did have one, but we will start using the Bloomberg Index next month when they will have 100 days worth of data.
If I were tracking it, I’m sure the market type would be bear volatile. The purpose of this report, however, is just to give you a status quo of the cryptoasset markets, not to predict. The market type right now is definitely bearish and we’d expect that to continue for a while.
As I’ve said before, the blockchain is an Institutional revolution. Right now institutions determine value and have all the power. The blockchain could change all of that by letting decentralized groups determine value, however, institutions (and here I’m including big countries) will not give up there power easily. And right now there is a conspiracy going on to keep priced down so that big institutions can accumulate as much as possible while they scare the average guy out of the market.
China for instance has declared a ban on cryptos even though the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Info Technology now lists what they believe to be the best strongest cryptos. Their list is as follows:
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One of my Super Traders has a hedge fund and he’s spending a lot of time working on cryotoassets. He is avoiding all of the privacy coins because he is afraid that the major governments of the world will outlaw such coins. The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, has announced that they are opening up a trading exchange in Uganda. Even if the world’s largest countries do outlaw privacy coins, they cannot destroy the market because of its decentralized nature and there will always be countries who will allow them. Notice that the Chinese Ministry above ranks Monero 9th and Verge 14th. Both are privacy coins and the privacy coins are still among the
best performing cryptos.
Bottom line:
- I don’t know what Bitcoin is going to do in the next six months. In fact, I don’t even like BTC because transacting in it is too slow, too expensive, and BTC mining currently uses up $1.5 billion dollars’ worth of our energy to produce. All this for a coin with a market cap right now of $109 billion.
- I don’t know if the second and third generation cryptoassets (Iota and Sky) will be the primary vehicles of the future. If they do survive, I’m sure there will be lots of changes through forks in the tokens.
- I am convinced that the blockchain is absolutely here to stay and that the revolution taking place will be the biggest in my lifetime. It will change everything.
- 2018 is currently a difficult year for cryptos because they are still new and so different. Are cryptos a security or are they a form of property? The IRS (and most world taxing authorities) treat all cryptoassets as property so that a tax event occurs as soon as you sell any. That means if you have bitcoin in a debit card and you use the card to buy coffee, you have created a taxable event. Cryptoassets need the $600 minimum rule that applies to FOREX before they can become a major alternative to other currencies.
- In addition, the ability for crypto projects in their infancy to explode in value is challenged by the required dealings with the SEC. Innovation in a small company is very difficult while it has to deal with lots of legal issues.
- There will be ETFs for both BTC and ETH at some time in 2019. When that happens, they will explode and the crypto market in general will take off big time.
- I’ve offered to help my staff create their own crypto portfolio but most are too scared to do anything. My personal assistant, Chantel is game so we’ll be setting up a portfolio for her quite soon. We might use that as a model portfolio to track.
- Finally, many of the best traders/investors in the world became that way because they found a huge edge and because they were in the right place at the right time. Well, you can find one of those kinds of edges in blockchain today – but only for a short while.
Until the August 15 crypto update, this is Van Tharp.
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About the Author: Trading coach, and author, Dr. Van K. Tharp is widely recognized for his best-selling books and his outstanding Peak Performance Home Study program - a highly regarded classic that is suitable for all levels of traders and investors. You can learn more about Van Tharp www.vantharp.com.
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Attend Forex and Sideways back-to-back in August to
save up to $1,000!
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Instructor Kim Andersson discusses some of the objectives of her upcoming workshop "Sideways Market Strategies" in the video below.
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Blockchain as a System
Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
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One of the many reasons that blockchain excites me is that I’ve realized how the entire blockchain phenomenon is something that can only really be understood from a systems thinking perspective.
I’ve written about systems thinking before but let me refresh you a little bit about the qualities of a system. A system assumes the following at minimum:
- The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
- There are multiple causes in a system all acting together.
- Because of the synthesis of multiple parts acting together and multiple causation, new things can emerge from the system that could never be predicted. All you can do is run simulations and look at probabilities.
- And perhaps most importantly, within the context of systems thinking, the subjective is at least as important as the objective.
- And I would probably make the case that the subjective might be all there is or at least that it is way more important than the objective (but that’s a whole different subject).
Blockchain technology is actually an institutional revolution so it’s much more important than the introduction of Internet even though the two have been compared. Right now, we have big centralized institutions that 1) oversee trust; 2) manage and control everything about how their systems of business work; and 3) even determine value within the system. They (institutions) determine what’s important and what they give value to. In addition, centralized institutions generate a lot of waste.
Blockchain technology, however, changes all of that for the following reasons;
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- It acts as a decentralized ledger and stores value and contracts. No big institutions are required which can decrease by huge amounts, overhead, corruption, and waste.
- If the blockchain involves enough computers, trying to cheat the network is much more expensive than cooperating. So suddenly, you don’t need a central authority or government or legal system to maintain trust. It can be done by a centralized ledger.
- It has a new way to determine value – the token. The token, and how many people are drawn to it, determines what is valued. Thus, all sorts of new things never valued by big institutions, can now have a monetized value.
- For example, STEEM Power values such thinks as “likes” on a social network.
- Power Ledger values the use and distribution of solar energy.
- Factom values the ability to identify a machine on the “Internet of Things” as having a unique identity and controls it in such a way that it cannot be hacked.
- Right now there are over 1,600 different crypto assets each creating new types of value and allowing it to be monetized.
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- Right now we have a big Internet marketplace in eBay. Ebay, a centralized organization, brings together buyers and sellers into a massive marketplace and charges fees for listing and selling. Open Bazaar (or something similar) however, could make eBay obsolete. Why? Because Open Bazaar brings together buyers and sellers through a centralized peer-to-peer network of computers. You can put something up for sale on Open Bazaar and sell to someone else on the other side of the world without an organization as a middleman — and it’s done through smart contracts. The buyer has to pay through the smart contact but the seller doesn’t get the money until
the buyer has taken delivery. This kind of decentralized marketplace could even displace a huge company like Amazon.
- Amazon, Google, eBay, and numerous other giant companies that sprung out to the Internet revolution could actually disappear when the blockchain revolution reaches the same stage as the Internet is at now.
- Right now there are blockchain projects to replace governments: Culture, Bitnation, and Democracy earth.
- Karl Marx objected to capitalism because it only rewarded those who put up capital. The blockchain has the potential to create a new form of capital. It’s one in which those who actually do the work will have the tokens and the ownership.
- There is a system now whereby you can tokenize any asset that you have and then get a very inexpensive loan for it. This can be a huge boon to underdeveloped countries which have the assets but any reasonable way to get loans.
- And here is one more. Right now you cannot buy a fully automated car yet. My Tesla has autopilot, but autopilot needs a driver to make sure it doesn’t crash — and that might occur once every two hours or so. However, there is already a token that will enable a network of decentralized autonomous vehicles (DAV) to manage the use of autonomous cars. This means that you could easily borrow an automated car, or yours could be working for you when you don’t need it and it could probably pay for itself.
Blockchain technology is just getting started but big organizations (governments and huge corporations) have all the power right now. Most of them are smart enough to see that the blockchain poses a huge threat that they cannot stop. As a result, they will use all their power to try to gain control of the technology but in this case it might not be possible.
Right now most crypto currencies have gone through a huge decline in value. But his is just because the market is small enough that big institutions have enough money and power to manipulate the price. They are trying to buy up as much as they can at the currently cheap prices. I’d be really surprised if there isn’t another huge upsurge in token prices in 2018.
There are already three generations to the blockchain since it started with Bitcoin in 2009. Bitcoin is really the first generation blockchain. It simply represents a decentralized ledger that has never been hacked and is too big right now for that to happen. It’s very inefficient from a transaction standpoint costing a lot of money to send Bitcoin from one address to another. Right now bitcoin miners use up $1.5 billion dollars worth of electricity every year. It’s also slow to send it (it could take 3 to 24 hrs to send it). As a result, Bitcoin will probably be replaced by something better (i.e., Bitcoin Cash, for example).
Blockchain two has already come around and most tokens have some relationship to blockchain one. Blockchain two is represented by Ethereum. Ethereum is a centralized ledger that also has the ability to carry out a smart contract which brings a whole new dimension to cryptoassets. There are over 1,400 projects now involving the ETH platform.
But wait, blockchain three is also out there now with coins such as SKYCOIN and IOTA which tackle the problems of scalability. Thus, transaction times will be very fast and lots and lots of data can be stored on a blockchain. IOTA has Tangle, which is a scalable, lightweight form of a blockchain, and allows value to be transferred without fees.
What’s happening next is that there will be billions and billions of devices on the Internet of Things. Each device will be able to communicate with blockchains. What does that mean? Let's say you have a super smart kitchen appliance at some point in the future. That appliance will sense that something is wrong (either already broken or about to break). It will immediately contact a service center and arrange for a repair order. That process will be automatic and the manufacturer of the appliance will suddenly have a newer plus much more reliable source of feedback on their machines — the machines themselves.
Scammers do not control blockchain technology or cryptoassets and those that exist will disappear soon. Blockchain technology is an institutional revolution that will soon change everything.
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About the Author: Trading coach, and author, Dr. Van K. Tharp is widely recognized for his best-selling books and his outstanding Peak Performance Home Study program - a highly regarded classic that is suitable for all levels of traders and investors. You can learn more about Van Tharp www.vantharp.com.
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Two Dates - Two Countries
Forex Workshops
♦ August 11-13 in CARY, NC
♦ October 20-22 in LONDON, ENGLAND
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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August 11-13
Saturday-Monday
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Presented by Gabriel Grammatidis
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August 14-15
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
If you've ever had an interest in Forex Trading you now have two opportunities this year to take both Forex workshops (Forex Trading and Forex Live) and learn from an expert in this field. Not only are we offering these workshops at our facility in Cary, NC this August, but we are also offering them this October in London, England along with a host of Van's other ground breaking workshops! Be sure to use a combo discount if attending more than one workshop to pay less for each event!
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Presented by Kim Andersson
Profit When Price Goes Nowhere: How to Successfully Trade Sideways Markets In Every Time Frame
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August 17-19
Friday-Sunday
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No matter what time frame you trade or what method you use to measure them, Sideways markets happen between 59% and 65% of the time! And even though they appear a majority of the time, Sideways markets are rarely discussed, even in professional trading circles. Until now....
Kim is a 2015 Super Trader Graduate from VTI. Before she completed her studies with us, she had earned a Masters in Systems Engineering - which is no small feat! She has also served as an IT Security Consultant to the Pentagon, while also performing her duties with the Canadian Air Force.
She currently works as a Cyber Security Engineer at Lockheed Martin/Leidos and trades her systems part-time, finding a work/life balance that works for her and her family.
With over 1,850 trades completed, Kim has the solutions AND THE EXPERIENCE to lead you in a Sideways Market.
She has put in a tremendous amount of work and effort in to bringing this unique training out into the open. Originally designed with our Super Traders in mind, Kim and I decided to develop this material so that all traders or investors could come to the workshop and take home this critical information on this underappreciated market type.
This means that enrollment is limited as many seats will be filled with students from our elite Super Trader program.
If you think you are ready for a fast-paced, hands-on event hosted by an instructor, 100% dedicated to teaching you how to effectively trade Sideways markets, make plans to join us this August 17th-19th.
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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!
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Presented by Libby Adams and RJ Hixson
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September 18-21
Tuesday-Friday
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The Peak Performance 202 Workshop is divided into three sections covering 4 days:
How you are programmed to follow the path that others want you to follow.
The various games that you play.
Personal reinvention.
Past participants say this was one of the most significant workshops they had ever attended. You will leave with a new sense of purpose and a new direction and a support team behind them.
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Presented by Van Tharp,
with RJ Hixson
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October 12-14
Friday-Sunday
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Overcoming Self-Sabotage
Peak Performance 101 not only helps you install Dr. Tharp’s model; it also helps you overcome self-sabotage — those habits or behaviors that you know hurt your results but which you still find yourself doing. He’ll give you strategies to free yourself from the internal conflicts that keep you from performing at a peak level.
This workshop will help you identify and resolve the underlying conflicts causing negative 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. Plus, we have a satisfaction guarantee. If by noon on the 2nd day you are not happy you can return your workbook and receive a FULL refund. No problem.
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
If you've ever had an interest in Forex Trading you now have two opportunities this year to take both Forex workshops (Forex Trading and Forex Live) and learn from an expert in this field. Not only are we offering these workshops at our facility in Cary, NC this August, but we are also offering them this October in London, England along with a host of Van's other ground breaking workshops! Be sure to use a combo discount if attending more than one workshop to pay less for each event!
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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 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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November 9-11
Friday-Sunday
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November 12-13
Monday-Tuesday
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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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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.
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