D.R. Barton

A strong start to 2023 has lots of analysts wondering if they need to change their outlook for the year. The major U.S. stock indexes bottomed around October of 2022. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise that fund managers surveyed in November hit one of their highest levels of recession fears, according to Bank of America Global Fund manager surveys (in chart below). It also wouldn’t take much imagination to guess that they are a bit more optimistic now. In fact, the expectation for a recession in the next

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves This Sunday, somewhere between 100 and 250 million people will watch the Super Bowl live. And in the week of hype leading up to the game, about 100 million articles will be written about whether the Super Bowl winner can predict how the stock market will fare for the rest of the year. The authors will do some hand-waving about

History is replete with strategies that worked for a time, then became ineffective, and were subsequently abandoned. Examples can be found in sales and marketing, product design, and in all facets of entertainment from TV shows to stand-up comedy. But the easiest place to understand the phenomenon of once-dominant strategies losing their effectiveness might be in military battlefield tactics. The bow and arrow, plus horses, were used in battles from ancient times and no significant technological advances came into play until gunpowder was first employed in the 14th century. So,

“Joy is the serious business of Heaven”. —C.S. Lewis, British Author I love the Christmas season for a variety of reasons. Of course, it’s a time to enthusiastically celebrate spiritual traditions: The birth of a baby in a manger and the miraculous burning of the last available sacred oil for eight days instead of one. Regardless of your spiritual tradition, it’s also a time of year when folks, in general, slow down and really endeavor to remember friends and family, and spread a little cheer along the way. Later in

Speculators, in general, and traders and investors in particular, have always been the “lone wolves” of the financial world. The Bucket Shops of Jesse Livermore’s day and more recently, the Day Trading rooms of the late 1990s and early 2000s were vain attempts to bring socialization to the speculating individual. The meme stock movement that lit up the volume and the price (usually temporarily) of fundamentally weak stocks in the last 24 months has been an incomplete and usually anonymous attempt for traders to mingle via various channels of social

This trading tip – the first in a series – is one where your knee-jerk reaction might be to skip it and move on, looking instead for a new entry technique or indicator or… you get the picture. Don’t do it. Stick with me for a few paragraphs. You’ll be glad you did. Why? Because, deep down inside, there’s a reason you want to be a better trader or investor. That’s why you found (stumbled upon, begrudgingly came to) the Van Tharp Institute in the first place. Right? You came