Van Tharp Institute - Page 2 of 37

Gratitude, Thanksgiving, and the State of the Markets By, D. R. Barton, Jr.

December 3, 2021 December 3, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Thanksgiving week is seasonally one of the strongest of the year. On Monday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the broader S&P 500 followed the time-tested tradition of strong Thanksgiving weeks by notching a new intraday all-time high before pulling back later in the session. In today’s tip, let’s take a look at what could be driving market direction into the end of the year. Then, we’ll wrap up with a quick thought on thankfulness, along with an exercise that I think you’ll find very enriching. Since the October market swoon, I’ve …

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Using the Jeff Clark-VIX Indicator to Highlight Short-Term Market Bottoms By, Chuck Whitman and Mark Boucher

December 3, 2021 December 3, 2021 / 4 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Significant internal and ancillary indicators can help a trader find strong odds and highly asymmetric times where the upside potential vastly outweighs the potential risk. One of those indicators we use, and teach, in our VTI/REED$TRADER Stock Market Timing Workshop, highlights possible short-term market lows. Today, let’s take a brief look at the Jeff Clark-VIX indicator. In 1993 the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) started releasing data on the VIX (Volatility Index). Shortly after that, astute trader Jeff Clark noticed that this Volatility Index on the S&P tended to pop …

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Update on Cryptocurrencies As of November 15th, 2021 By, Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

November 18, 2021 November 18, 2021 / 10 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

In May 2018, Bloomberg announced that they had formed a cryptocurrency index called the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index. Since Bloomberg only caters to institutional clients, an index of this nature was one of the first steps toward widespread institutional involvement. The index composition changes regularly but we will just show the graph because so many institutional investors follow it. Similarly, there are many indices for crypto that institutional investors now follow. For example, Bitwise has also opened the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund and you can actually invest in. it. …

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What to Do in a World of Asset Prices Gone Wild By, D. R. Barton, Jr.

November 11, 2021 November 11, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I’ve never quite understood the bearish crowd that worries “things are going too well.” Yes, I understand reversion to the mean. I also believe that sentiment analysis (too many people on one side of the market or the other) helps point out potential turning points. But over the past 15-20 years, markets have consistently been driven more by the availability of massive amounts of capital infused by central banks than by traditional market fundamentals. Rather than debate the merits (or lack thereof) of Modern Monetary Theory, what I’d like to …

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You Don’t Trade the Markets: You Trade Your Beliefs About the Markets By, Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

November 11, 2021 November 11, 2021 / 15 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

In the last few months, I’ve observed one person trade a system that he’d already proven not to work because he thought it might work if he had more trades. I’ve seen another person say that cryptoassets had no intrinsic value and subsequently delete all newsletters related to cryptos. That sounds a bit like Warren Buffet saying Bitcoin is “rat poison squared” and about fifty percent of all institutional traders were agreeing with him. On the other hand, I’ve watched people in their twenties get excited about crypto “Shitcoins” such …

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October 2021 System Quality Number® Report The SQN® Report By, Van K. Tharp, PhD

November 5, 2021 November 5, 2021 / 6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

There are numerous ETFs that track everything from countries, commodities, currencies, and stock market indices to individual market sectors. ETFs provide a wonderfully easy way to discover what’s happening in the world markets. I apply an index-based version of my System Quality Number® (SQN®) score to measure the relative performance of numerous markets in a world model. The Market SQN score uses the daily percent change for input over a 100-day period. Typically, a Market SQN score over 1.47 is strongly bullish, and a score below -0.7 is very weak. …

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October 2021 Market Update Bull Normal Market Type By, Van K. Tharp, PhD

November 5, 2021 November 5, 2021 / 5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I always say that people do not trade the markets; they trade their beliefs about the markets. In that same way, I’d like to point out that these updates reflect my beliefs. I find the market update information useful for my trading, so I do the work each month and am happy to share that information with my readers. However, if your beliefs are not similar to mine, then this information may not be useful to you. Thus, if you are inclined to go through some sort of intellectual exercise …

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Ken’s After-Action Review Nightly Strategy Podcast: October 20, 2021 By, Ken Long

November 4, 2021 November 4, 2021 / 1 minute of reading / Leave a Comment

In this coaching session, Ken Long uses bar-by-bar training to do an After-Action Review of specific trades, with additional commentary on the patterns. He concludes with a scan for setups for the following day—a nightly practice for success! https://youtu.be/jgbzS5mx4VE

How to Sell the High—or Better By, Chuck Whitman

November 4, 2021 November 4, 2021 / 5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Last year, I wrote an article for the VTI Weekly Newsletter (April 8, 2020) entitled “Same Trades, Different Views. Improve Your Results with Positive Reversion”. In this article, I introduced the concept of the Excursion Ratio, which I now call the Capture Rate. The Capture Rate uses two different inputs. The first is Maximum Favorable Excursion (MFE) which is the furthest the trade went in your favor during the life of your trade. The second input is the actual profit (or loss). When we take the profit and divide it …

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Update on Cryptocurrencies as of October 15, 2021 By, Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

October 21, 2021 October 21, 2021 / 9 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

We did not publish a Crypto Update last month in mid-September. My laptop had crashed (the whole motherboard had to be replaced) and we started driving back home to North Carolina from Las Vegas. Thus, I have a lot to catch up on with you this month. Bloomberg announced in May 2018 that they had formed the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index which was significant for several reasons. First, Bloomberg only caters to institutional clients. An index of this nature was the first step to widespread institutional involvement. The index tracks …

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