Dr. Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

Editors note: The following is an excerpt from the Definitive Guide to Position Sizing Strategies book. While some readers may be familiar with this topic a refresher is always useful. For readers who have yet to learn more about position sizing, take note. This is important information! John was a little shell-shocked about what happened…

How many shares or contracts should you take per trade? It’s a critical question, one that most traders don’t really know how to answer properly. Position sizing™ strategies are the parts of your trading system that answers this question. They tell you “how much” for each and every trade. Whatever your objectives happen to be,…

What is a Super Trader? The answer really gets to the heart of what the Van Tharp Institute is all about. Our mission is “transformation through a trading metaphor.” And if you believe that you create your entire experience, or at least the meaning you give to that experience, then you must personally transform to…

What would happen if you could just pay attention to what the market is doing right now? You’d be totally in the present with no preconceived ideas or biases to influence you. If you did that, your trading probably would accelerate to a new level. You can trade that way if you practice “mindfulness.” For…

During the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis, we saw the dangers of lots of power in big banks and in central governments. Big banks had invented products that were insane and sold them to unwary parties. The result was a market collapse and a major change of the world’s wealth. Big government and big banks had…

I think every trader should have to read a warning prior to plunging into the markets. The warning should not be something naïve such as “Future results may not reflect past performance.” No, the warning should be much stronger. It should be something like: Warning! You are biologically and culturally wired to lose a lot…

When I was a young boy in the 1950s, probably half of the children I knew collected stamps (the stamp experts tell me it was actually more than that). Stamp collecting was one of the most significant hobbies in the world and we all grew up expecting our stamps to increase in value over time….

Some of you may have seen this exercise before (it’s in my book Super Trader), but our experiences change over time, so exercises like this are worth repeating. Think about some problem you have with your trading. It could be almost any problem. Perhaps you have trouble taking profits too soon. You might get angry…