D.R. Barton Archives - Van Tharp Institute

Gratitude By, D.R. Barton, Jr.

November 25, 2020 November 25, 2020 / 9 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”—A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh ***Warning — You are about to be issued a personal challenge. As hard as it is to believe — there are traders and investors who read this weekly missive, study Van’s materials, and STILL believe that the psychological aspect of trading isn’t that important. Here’s my challenge — do the two exercises at the end of this article. If your trading and your experience of life (i.e. …

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It’s Scary How Well the Halloween Indicator Keeps Working… by, D.R. Barton, Jr.

October 29, 2020 October 29, 2020 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Normally at Halloween, the only madness that I have to put up with is an incomprehensible number of Halloween costume shops that open up for six weeks in every vacant storefront. They apparently do quite well because, in my neck of the woods, they’re stinkin’ everywhere. But here’s something that is actually much more useful for the Halloween season… For more than a decade I’ve written columns for Van and his team in the Tharp’s Thoughts newsletter. One of my favorite research areas continues to be old Wall Street sayings …

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The Great Covid Migration By, D. R. Barton, Jr.

October 22, 2020 October 22, 2020 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Chances are that you’ve seen it in your own neighborhood or heard about it from friends and family. College students moving home as universities switched to remote classes. Gig and restaurant workers leaving city centers as lockdowns shuttered their employers. Folks afraid of catching Covid relocating out to the suburbs, where avoiding others is easier. Those are just three examples of one great migration that’s played out in America this year. Far from being random, the patterns are clear in who’s moving where. Long after Covid goes away, the …

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Colder Weather is Coming So Avoid These Stocks Like the Plague (or Short ‘Em) by, D.R. Barton, Jr.

October 8, 2020 October 8, 2020 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Amid this summer’s economic pain, continued cases of COVID, and lockdown restrictions, the outdoors have been a bright spot. For individuals, it’s been where we’ve been able to see friends and family without too much risk of catching COVID. For bars, restaurants, and cafes, the open air has allowed them to serve customers and take in a little money. Now, fall is settling in and temperatures are dropping, especially in northern states, it’s going to make the outside much less appealing. COVID cases are already resurging and as people …

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The “New” Peak Oil by, D.R. Barton, Jr.

September 24, 2020 September 24, 2020 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I still remember sitting in my chemical engineering heat transfer class in the mid 1980s. Our professor was an older gentleman who wanted to impart some “big picture” wisdom on his class of graduating seniors. He explained M. King Hubbert’s paper on peak oil from almost 30 years earlier. With an almost religious zeal, our prof told us how oil reserves would soon grow scarce and too expensive to extract. He was a tad bit early but in all fairness, he and other petroleum experts never saw coming few …

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Covid Food Supply Chain Follow-Up: As Predicted – No Widespread Food Shortages By, D.R. Barton, Jr.

August 28, 2020 August 28, 2020 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Barely a month into the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, we had already experienced bare shelves at the grocery store back in early April. First, stores ran out of toilet paper and disinfectant wipes. Then stores ran out of canned foods and rice. Then in mid-April, headlines started talking about longer-lasting “food shortages.” Meat processing plants across the country were closing down as the cramped work spaces sparked COVID outbreaks. Combine those headlines with the occasional empty grocery store shelf and people started to get scared – which of course …

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How Congress Is About to Give Markets a “Kodak Moment” to Remember: A Lesson in Sell-The-News Moments by, D.R. Barton, Jr.

August 13, 2020 August 13, 2020 / 8 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Back in my college days as a chemical engineering student, I found myself driving down to Kingsport, TN. I was due to start a cooperative education job at the Eastman Kodak Co. (KODK) chemical plant there. I won’t regale you with stories of my time there. At least not this time. But I do remember looking at the biggest chemical plant in the world with awe (13,000+ employees at the time). Since then, in 1994, Kodak sold off its chemical business, it’s now Eastman Chemical (EMN). Now my former …

How Congress Is About to Give Markets a “Kodak Moment” to Remember: A Lesson in Sell-The-News Moments by, D.R. Barton, Jr. Read More »

This Market Rally The Goldilocks’s Zone of Bad News for Continued Fed Stimulus by D.R. Barton, Jr.

July 23, 2020 July 23, 2020 / 7 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

There must be some kind of way outta here, Said the joker to the thief. There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief. –Bob Dylan (though best performed by Jimi Hendrix) While these well-known words from the song “All Along the Watchtower” were recorded back in 1967, they seem very fitting for the situation we find ourselves over 53 years later. But the relief which traders want right now is not necessarily relief from the worst pandemic in over 100 years. That would certainly be welcome but traders …

This Market Rally The Goldilocks’s Zone of Bad News for Continued Fed Stimulus by D.R. Barton, Jr. Read More »

The COVID Surge Is Real –Why Is the Market Pushing Up? By, D.R. Barton, Jr.

July 9, 2020 July 9, 2020 / 7 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Over the last two to three weeks, new Coronavirus cases in America have gone up over 80%, mainly in the South and West. California, the first state in the US to lock down originally, reported a new daily record for the state of 9,897 cases on Tuesday. Just under half of those new cases came from Los Angeles County and no, this isn’t just because of more testing. The number of Californians hospitalized because of COVID-19 has almost doubled in just two weeks. Texas is arguably fairing worse. …

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Rising Markets Are Now a Public Good by, D.R. Barton, Jr.

June 12, 2020 June 12, 2020 / 12 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

First, what is happening? Well, we’re in the middle of some of the worst global crises in a long time… The worst health crisis in a century and . . .The worst economic crisis in twelve years, if not longer, because of that health crisis and . . .The worst geopolitical tensions since the end of the Cold War three decades ago and . . .The worst civil unrest in more than 50 years and . . . . . . the Nasdaq is making new all-time highs. Employment …

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