Van Tharp's Peak Performance/Fin. Freedom Through Day Trading

[jem]

Dude, I think you missed the point.

If your think I was a pitchman for a forty dollar book you must not have read the rest of my post. Here is the deal, I was making money trading but I did not know it would last. Prior to reading that book I thought I needed to have more winners than losers. Once I understood what Tharp calls expectancy I knew I could make money the rest of my life because it is not my entries but my method of taking profits and losses. Once I understood that subject, I knew if I made a lot of relatively small trades and let my winners get larger than my losers I could trade anything anywhere anytime. I think that knowledge is worth a lot more than 40 bucks. How bout you?

Now if you think someone who stated in their post that he knew Robert and implicitly questioned (not denied) the value of clearing; was at the same time being a pitchman for a forty dollar book you need to rely on a very good mechanical system because you are not very intuitive.

regards,

John

 

[NickLeeson]

Originally posted by longken
when i consult with businesses my fee is 200/hr

when i decide on how to spend my time learning new things, i base my decision on how to approach the task using 200/hr. this helps me figure out whether i want to spend time doing primary research or buy packaged information for a specific purpose.

i am a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and have developed expertise in business process reengineering and logistics automation among other things. as a sidelight when i am on vacation from the army, i occasionally freelance as a management consultant and hire myself out at 1500-2000 bucks a day to folks who leverage my knowledge. that works out to about 200 bucks an hour.

it is not worth my time to try to recreate certain packages of knowledge even though the raw materials are out there in the world waiting to be found.

so a risk free 600 bucks makes sense for me based on the time dynamics i have noted above. It gets me to the action stage of implementation quickly, whereas it takes a lot longer, with more risk for me (and my psychology) to spend a lot of time in primary research in areas that are not in my main area of concentration (or my "key competencies")

similarly, if my trading strategy does not return 200/hr, then i am better off earning money other ways than by trading

What a load of unqualified crap from the THARP MARKETING DEPT

Hey, I liked the book that he wrote, Trade your Way to Financial Freedom, but that and a spot of normal common sense plus discipline is all anybody would ever need to be able to earn more money over time than you lose.

Period.

Anybody who claims something else is just chasing after your money.

Hey, it's a fact, most people just aren't cut out to be in this biz, but they make a very attractive target for all the people pretending to be able to turn net losers into net winners.

Ever seen Buy or Sell Side Pros lining up for seminars? Ever hobnobbed with Soros, Cohen, Tudor Jones at one of these "I'll turn you into a great Trader for 3000 bucks gigs?" hehe

Having said that, I will also say, buy his book, grasp the concepts, and take him for what he is, somebody who was featured in Jack Schwagers Market Wizards not as one of the wizards themselves, but as a psychologist specialised in traders psyches who managed to gain a good theoretical understanding of the relevant factors in trading.

No more, but also no less.

 

[andrasnm]

Originally posted by NickLeeson


What a load of unqualified crap from the THARP MARKETING DEPT

Hey, I liked the book that he wrote, Trade your Way to Financial Freedom, but that and a spot of normal common sense plus discipline is all anybody would ever need to be able to earn more money over time than you lose.

Period.

Anybody who claims something else is just chasing after your money.

Of course, BUT - coaching has a value.Even If there is a lot of money involved (some amount of proven success) - ANY trader can get into a spiral of a "death-knell" or for a lack of better words
a down spiral - no matter how succesful he/she was before.
This happens typically when there is a great phase shift.
like decimalization, volume loss, futures take limit down for several days... etc :eek:
I know this for a fact - I have been there. I made 50-80k a months
before trading. I have traded beans up to 900k while with Refco (when I still believed in pyramiding as a futures trader):eek:
I made lots of money and lost lot's of it !!! It happens all the time
NLP, coaching can stop (or at least try to stop that)
Why else would anyone pay Robbins 10k a day - to look at his face? No, to avoid losing millions or maybe tens of millions as
big some trade.

 

[squall]

Quote from Sterling:

Newgradtrader

What makes 5 learning manuals consisting of:

Vol 1 How to use risk
Vol 2 How to control stress
Vol 3 How to control Losing Attitudes
Vol 4 How to develop Discipline
Vol 5 How to make sound decisions

Worth 600 dollars?

Van Tharp can teach you everything to know about the stock market except one thing: How to trade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This guy makes millions giving seminars and writing books on a subject he knows little about.

If you want to spend 600 dollars to improve your trading i would suggest:

Books:

Trading with DiNapoli Levels by Joe DiNapoli cost =160.00
Dynamic Trading by Robert Miner cost =79.00

Software:

Trade Prospector www.3mtrading.com cost=400
Total Cost=639.00

Just buying one book listed here will be more beneficial than anything by Van Tharp

Sterling

Yeah you're right he can't trade for crap...what's funny is that in Financial Freedom thru Electronic daytrading he says he is a successful swing trader...but then all of a sudden he is talking about how he doesn't trade and only manages his companies retirement funds or some such crap.

I kinda liked what he said at first....but I can't get past the fact that the guy is so full of it....I hate liars, they aren't worth a bucket of warm piss

 

[RL8093]

Quote from squall:

Yeah you're right he can't trade for crap...what's funny is that in Financial Freedom thru Electronic daytrading he says he is a successful swing trader...but then all of a sudden he is talking about how he doesn't trade and only manages his companies retirement funds or some such crap.

I kinda liked what he said at first....but I can't get past the fact that the guy is so full of it....I hate liars, they aren't worth a bucket of warm piss

Interesting that you felt the need to bring up a thread from 2001 just to bash a guy...

In Schwager's 1st Wizard's book (pg 430), Tharp clearly explains why he doesn't trade:
- possible conflict w/ objectivity concerning clients
- complete commitment to helping his clients (& therefore a lack of commitment to trading)

Unless I'm missing something, I fail to see where he is lying at all ....

In general, I find that there's rarely a one size fits all solution to training or trading or most things. What works for me may not work for others.

I have found NLP (including Tharp's version in his Peak Performance Course) to be moderately useful. Is it worth $600? For me, the cost of something like this is minor if I find it helps my trading in even a small way.

OTOH, the book Trading with DiNapoli Levels by Joe DiNapoli cost =160.00 was the most useless trading book I've ever purchased. It was one of the few books I had absolutely no need to keep around. Pouring through those ego-laden pages taught me virtually nothing new - even though I was self-taught w/ Fibo retracements / projections. IIRC, he also discussed displaced MAs - which I learned elsewhere. Hopefully, others found some use for this paperweight tome ...

R

 

[squall]

Quote from RL8093:

Interesting that you felt the need to bring up a thread from 2001 just to bash a guy...

In Schwager's 1st Wizard's book (pg 430), Tharp clearly explains why he doesn't trade:
- possible conflict w/ objectivity concerning clients
- complete commitment to helping his clients (& therefore a lack of commitment to trading)

Unless I'm missing something, I fail to see where he is lying at all ....

In general, I find that there's rarely a one size fits all solution to training or trading or most things. What works for me may not work for others.

I have found NLP (including Tharp's version in his Peak Performance Course) to be moderately useful. Is it worth $600? For me, the cost of something like this is minor if I find it helps my trading in even a small way.

OTOH, the book Trading with DiNapoli Levels by Joe DiNapoli cost =160.00 was the most useless trading book I've ever purchased. It was one of the few books I had absolutely no need to keep around. Pouring through those ego-laden pages taught me virtually nothing new - even though I was self-taught w/ Fibo retracements / projections. IIRC, he also discussed displaced MAs - which I learned elsewhere. Hopefully, others found some use for this paperweight tome ...

R

Not my fault you fail to see something. He says it himself in Financial Freedom Through Electronic Daytrading that he is a successful swing trader. By the way, this book was written after Market Wizards, therefore it is the more recent information, which means that he claims to be a trader AFTER he gave a list of reasons he said he wouldn't trade. Sorry, but if he was such a benevolent soul that he was willing to give up untold riches by being able to be a Peak Performer Trader just so he could help his clients, he wouldn't charge so much for the shit. If he was so charitable he wouldn't be charging thousands and thousands of dollars for his time. Have you seen his shit lately? He is heavy into mainstream marketing and stuff...really sad, because I seriously used to respect him and his ideas. I still respect his older ideas, but it sucks to see someone stoop to the mainstream marketing tactics he uses these days. In his "updated" Trade your way to financial freedom book (why he felt the need to update it, I don't know..oh wait yes I do-marketing) every other sentence is pointing you to buy another one of his products or to attend one of his buddies' seminars, etc. If you read some of the info on him, got ripped off by someone big time (it was one of his Peak Performance Traders he trained and pushed his fund on to a bunch of people and the dude fucked them all out of money) and so it really boils down to him getting screwed on a TON of money (I heard it was like 50% of his assets if I remember correctly) and he has to resort to going apeshit with his marketing to play catch up on his wealth.....why he doesn't trade his own way to financial freedom I couldn't tell you.

 

[Businessman]

Quote from squall:

Yeah you're right he can't trade for crap...what's funny is that in Financial Freedom thru Electronic daytrading he says he is a successful swing trader...but then all of a sudden he is talking about how he doesn't trade and only manages his companies retirement funds or some such crap.

I kinda liked what he said at first....but I can't get past the fact that the guy is so full of it....I hate liars, they aren't worth a bucket of warm piss

He manages those retirement funds by swing trading, where is the lie in that?

Everyone knows he is not a full time trader and has never claimed to be.

 

[squall]

Quote from Businessman:

He manages those retirement funds by swing trading, where is the lie in that?

Everyone knows he is not a full time trader and has never claimed to be.

Are you extrapolating that information or did you actually read where he claims to manage the funds by swing trading?

Are you just saying he swing trades the retirement funds because I said that he claims to only manage retirement funds and also claims to be a swing trader?

I am not relying on your interpretation of what he said himself in the book. I read it myself and it is bullshit to claim that you are a trader if you aren't.

 

[JimmyJam]

Quote from jem:

Dude, I think you missed the point.

If your think I was a pitchman for a forty dollar book you must not have read the rest of my post. Here is the deal, I was making money trading but I did not know it would last. Prior to reading that book I thought I needed to have more winners than losers. Once I understood what Tharp calls expectancy I knew I could make money the rest of my life because it is not my entries but my method of taking profits and losses. Once I understood that subject, I knew if I made a lot of relatively small trades and let my winners get larger than my losers I could trade anything anywhere anytime. I think that knowledge is worth a lot more than 40 bucks. How bout you?

Now if you think someone who stated in their post that he knew Robert and implicitly questioned (not denied) the value of clearing; was at the same time being a pitchman for a forty dollar book you need to rely on a very good mechanical system because you are not very intuitive.

regards,

John

FTR, jem/John is spot-on in his analysis.

Now, you can achieve this goal by spending hundreds of hours of screen time as well as doing extensive quantitative analysis, or you can get a little help from your friends.

He just got a little help, is all.

Good trading,

Jimmy Jam

 

[jem]

hey a rare compliment thanks I wrote that a long time ago.



By the way, I was friends with his son Robert through trading and for a while and I knew Van pretty well and conversed with some of the guys in his group. Like D.R. (sp).


Van does trade. In fact he has set up some models in his newsletter.

However, if you speak he had a excellent understanding of what makes some traders successful. He answered a few of my esoteric questions so succinctly he saved me years of work.

I am rarely complimentary of vendors because most are full of it. I have no idea if Van can make you profitable but I do know he is bright and worked with some of the brightest.

I suspect the entire expectancy thing was from seykota.

I do not think its coincidence that Vans book came out just before the explosion of hedgefunds. He unlocked some secrets for every quant with a computer model. You add that to vol pumping and you got billionaires.

Would I spend a lot of money on his training. I do not know - I think his book has all you need till you are making money consistently and then maybe you consult with him on portfolio heat.