His R multiple isn't easy to apply in non very trendy days, especialy if you don't have stomach for seeing consecative losing trades and afterwards missing major part of trend.

Apart from above he express some new concepts which are valid and can be applied.

Btw, i don't think he traded too

This is the most misnamed book in the history of the written word. Traders call it "Tharp!î One word says it all. In the world of Trading "Tharp," is the generic name for Position Sizing or how many securities should I trade this time?

Tharp was not written for the Individual trader, but the same principles apply. "Tharp," along with "Reminiscences," will improve any traderÍs philosophy on winning in the securities trading game.

Dr. Tharp shows you how to sift through your trades and find the unconscious essence of your trading system. "Tharp," will be most useful to traders who have at least six months trading history to back analyze.

Primer! You will see that when you go beyond the book to Tharp's web site, videos, and tapes that the book is just a necessary primer.

Position sizing! Tharp assumes that you have some system or method or a series of former trades that you can calculate Expectancy from. Or a research company that tells you what to trade, how long to hold it and when to get rid of it. So that you can use there data to isolate a trading pattern.

Tharp's contribution "Position sizing," is mainly to help you decide "How many," to buy and sell.

Full Stance! In every case if you put on your full position at the beginning and unload your full position when you liquidate. You will have more profit than any kind of scaling scheme.

The thing is a full position is not defined as the number of contracts, but by the amount of risk (% of equity) that you are personally comfortable with.

Tharp's real trip is to help you look at your position as a constant non-changing size. "The key is that the number of contracts traded fluctuates in accordance with each securities volatility."

Unvarying risk! Your position size is not constant relative to the number of contracts. The number of contracts is not constant relative to the percent of equity. In addition, the day-to-day equity is not constant compared to yesterdayÍs equity.

In order to keep a constant risk you will have to periodically adjust the number of contracts that define that risk.

What this accomplishes is, as your equity rises you are increasing the number of contracts; also as your volatility increases in either direction you are reducing the number of contracts. You will have to balance number of contracts, equity, and volatility to keep your position size near constant.

"Tharp's is the subtlety by which the weak can overcome the strong!" -ooO-(GoldTrader)-Ooo-

Lots of info on the various methods of trading top traders uses as well as on the traders themselves (great intro for beginners).

I particularly like the parts (and emphasis) about Position Sizing, Expectancy, Stops and Exits. Very helpful information for those new to trading.

The writer does not take into consideration (nor does he need to) that the person reading might know absolutely nothing about trading and uses certain lingo but it does have a short glossary which explains most of them.

Yes, the title sounds cheesy, the book uses certain terrible looking MSWord's word art and Van K. Tharp's website is the most unprofessional website I have ever seen but these factors does not affect content...

Great Buy!

Well worth the rather stiff price, also be prepared to invest mental elbow grease as you'll be slogging through concepts that at first you may have little interest in implementing. Having put in the work, once you "get it", your view of money mangement will be far more realistic. Having cleared the "money mangement" minefield, you are better prepared to treat trading seriously at a deeper level and can take the next step, which is your psychological readiness for trading as a business. But that is another book and another author!

My only quibble is Mr. Tharp's writing style, which I found a bit heavy going at times. Another useful addition to the book would be an Appendix with a few of the simple formulas for the concepts he presents. However, I've run across a number of Excel worksheets shared by internet readers. Those that read the text carefully can also construct the formulas for themselves.