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Dr. Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

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.

Traders and Mistakes

/ 12 minutes of reading

Traders and Mistakes Part 1: Mechanical Traders by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. June 13, 2018 A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. I’ve always said that trading is mostly psychological and that traders should spend a lot of time working on their core issues. In fact, most of my Super Traders spend at least a year working on psychological issues before they get to work on their business plan or trading […]

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Mistakes Are the Downfall of Most Traders

/ 12 minutes of reading

by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. October 17, 2018 A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. In my experience, I find that it is very easy to design a system that will produce great returns (even 100% or more). What’s difficult is actually trading the system and getting those returns. In this article, I’ll show you how easy it is to develop a great system, how mistakes can be your downfall, and

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Paradigm Shifts for Trading Success

/ 9 minutes of reading

(or “AH-HA”s for Traders) By Van K. Tharp, Ph.D October 29, 2018 A note to readers: While Van’s content is timeless, it is from a past publication and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. When the topic of paradigm shifts came up at a workshop, I suddenly started talking about all the paradigm shifts that were in my book Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom. I had never before thought about the book in terms of paradigm shifts, but suddenly all of the information about the shifts discussed

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Being Right and Making Money Are Not Equivalent

/ 6 minutes of reading

By Professional Trading Coach, Van K. Tharp, PhD November 01, 2018 A note to readers: While much of this article’s content is timeless, it is from a past publication and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. How important is it for you to be right? Let’s say I could guarantee that you would make money by the end of the year — lots of money — but you would probably lose money on 90% of your trades. Would you like that? Could you tolerate that? Would you accept

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How You Process Information Influences Your Trading Results By Van K. Tharp

/ 6 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. As a trader part of your challenge is that you must make decisions based on a large amount of information. Thousands of volumes have been written on how to analyze the vast amount of investment information available. Few investment authorities will admit that most of this information is of low quality and has little predictive value. Since investment information is of such low quality, mental

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Understanding All the Risks in a Trade by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

/ 6 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. Typically, I teach people to think about two kinds of risk in a trade: the risk in your stop and position sizing risk (or the total risk to your portfolio). However, there are many other types of risk in a trade, especially in these market circumstances. I thought this would be a good time to detail all of them.  My complete list of risk

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Five Ways to Make Money in a Trading Business by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

/ 4 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. There are several methods for growing your trading business, especially when capital isn’t a problem. At first glance, they might seem obvious, but I’ve found that most people still don’t think about them enough, let alone implement them. Here are five key ways to grow your trading business: 1. Develop new, improved trading systems. Each system can help you make more profits, especially if it

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Seven Steps for Developing a Low-Risk Idea Parts 1 & 2 by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

/ 12 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. PART 1 People tend to think it’s hard to develop trading systems. I believe that having a process to follow makes developing trading systems a learnable skill. Let’s list the steps you might take to develop a low-risk idea and then look at each step in detail: Knowing the big picture and trading a strategy that will work given that big picture; Developing a

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Have You Experienced a Level I Transformation? by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

/ 6 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. Our mission at The Van Tharp Institute (VTI) is transformation through a financial metaphor.  Earlier in the year, I wrote a series of articles on the three different levels of transformation that we take people through. I thought I’d revisit the topic today to see if I could get additional feedback from our customers about a Level I transformation that you’ve experienced. The first level we

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Five Ways to Improve Your Market Performance by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

/ 6 minutes of reading

A note to readers: While Dr. Tharp’s content is timeless, this article is from our newsletter archive and may contain outdated information, missing links or images. From a big picture standpoint, I believe we entered a secular bear market back in 2000. Secular bear markets historically last on average about 15-20 years, so we still have quite a ways to go with this one. Being in a secular bear market doesn’t mean that prices decline for 15-20 years; however, it does mean that the price-to-earnings ratio for the stock market

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