Save your money. Yeah this is old news, but how could this (supposedly) sharp trading expert be so taken in and swindled? Also FWIW, Tharp's son used to post here. He took all the courses and was trained by VKT. AFAIK he failed at trading. Mobley's clients file lawsuit against his stock-trading coach Tuesday, April 17, 2001 By GINA EDWARDS, gvedwards@naplesnews.com David Mobley sometimes felt invincible, he confessed to his psychological stock-trading coach Van K. Tharp in an interview formerly posted on Tharp's International Institute of Trading Mastery Web site. The feeling that he had the Midas touch led to self-sabotage, Mobley said. Tharp helped Mobley curb feelings of invincibility, Mobley explained. And Tharp endorsed Mobley as an accomplished hedge-fund manager and graduate of his counseling courses. Van K. Tharp Now facing federal fraud and money-laundering charges, Mobley â who confessed to masterminding his $120 million, Naples-based Maricopa swindle to regulators last year â perhaps didn't get those feelings of invincibility curbed enough. Investors' claims top $100 million. A group of Mobley's jilted clients, who have collectively lost $8 million, now want Tharp to answer for his high praise of Mobley. The 25 investor plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit in Collier County Circuit Court seeking compensation and unspecified punitive damages from Tharp, his wife, Kala Tharp, and the International Institute of Trading Mastery in Cary, N.C. The investors claim Van Tharp acted with gross negligence by promoting Mobley as a successful trader. They say Tharp acted as a referral agent and reference for Mobley. "If you're a trading coach singing (Mobley's) praises, the clear implication is that you've looked over his shoulder and seen his success," said Mark Raymond, a Miami attorney who filed the suit on behalf of investors along with Naples attorney Chris Vernon. Raymond said Tharp should have done due diligence before soliciting investors for Mobley. Tharp, 54, and his Chicago-based attorney couldn't be reached for comment. The 25 investor plaintiffs include a Naples couple and others from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, Nebraska, Canada and the United Kingdom. Prosecutors say Mobley held himself out as a successful hedge-fund manager, but meanwhile used investors' money for a series of failed businesses and his own lavish lifestyle. A hedge fund pools investors' money and tries to hedge bets on the ups and downs of the market. Investors, who've submitted more than 300 claims to court-appointed lawyers gathering Maricopa and Mobley's assets for investors, expect a payback in the near future of 25 cents on each dollar invested. If convicted, Mobley, 44, could spend the rest of his life in prison. Despite confessing the scheme to federal regulators with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mobley has pleaded innocent to criminal charges and is scheduled to go to trial in June. Before the Maricopa funds collapsed in February 2000, Tharp praised Mobley's success on his International Institute of Trading Mastery Web site and said he invested his own money with Mobley as a show of confidence. The endorsement and interview is no longer on the Web site. The lawsuit claims that as early as 1993, Tharp endorsed Mobley and Maricopa. Tharp even asked Mobley to write the forward to his book "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom." According to the suit, Mobley wrote in the book forward in February 1998: "Since I met Dr. Tharp, my net worth has grown many times over, and I do believe that it comes from adopting many of the Holy Grail secrets contained in this book. I think that Dr. Tharp understands and teaches those secrets better than anyone else." Tharp's Web site formerly touted that as of mid-1997 Mobley's Florida hedge fund earned returns of more than 40 percent a year for the past five years, the lawsuit claims. Some of the plaintiffs claim in the suit that they invested with Mobley as a direct result of Tharp's endorsement. "I think the symbiotic relationship between the two is troubling," Vernon said. "(Tharp) put his stamp of approval on this guy." In his Peak Performance audiotape course for investors and traders, Tharp instructs investors to take accountability for losses. Some courses cost investors thousands of dollars, Raymond said. "There's no such thing as a loser, only someone who is in the process of losing," Tharp instructs on the four-tape course. In other words, the investor is in control of how they react to losses, Tharp said. The tapes also include hypnotic sessions in which Tharp instructs listeners to relax and breathe deeply. He asks listeners to feel "what it feels like to be the ideal you" and make up a magical word to conjure up those feelings later.
The workshops might be good if you dont like reading or want to experience some of his advanced psychological stuff in person. However you can get most of the benefit of his work from studying his books and audio CDs etc. Some of these are expensive but they do appear on ebay often and you can them for a fraction of the price there.. I do own most of his work because its much more affordable in GBP than USD. But im not the kind of person who would benefit much more from a workshop, so ive never attended any of these, even when he comes to London.
I read his book...trade your way to Financial Freedom. Guess what? I was expecting a book on how to trade your way to Acutally achieve financial freedom. The book had none of that. So I actually consider Mr. Tharp a liar and intentionally misleading the public with a false cover JUST SO HE COULD MAKE MONEY FOR HIMSELF! Therefore I would not recommend anything with his name associated with it? I hate a lack of integrity. Lucky
I did some initial work with him back in 1996; including the psychological profile and 1:1 dialogue. This was in addition to taking the Peak Performance course back then. I felt the money I spent; and I can't recall the exact amount, but $700 or so, to be an investment that helped me as a trader. I've now been trading full time almost 12 years and continue to improve. Van Tharp helped me to better see myself from a psychological perspective. I noted a lot of negative comments from others here. I can only wonder how many of them actually spent money taking a course. And then I wonder how many are actually full time traders. I bet the intersection of the two is nil. Many failed traders look to blame anyone they can; rather than looking at themself first and foremost. They read a book and expect to immediately become a successful trader. If that doesn't occur then they complain about being shortchanged. Traders who succeed in the markets work to achieve that success. Along the way they may pick up helpful material from others; including traders, books, psychologists, etc. In the end any help you get from Van Tharp or anyone else will be a very small part of your journey to becoming a consistently profitable trader.
I did 2 courses with him, years back- one was the money managment, the other one stock trading. And I read his books. Stock trading was useless, but I did not know that then. It was a Canslim approach that worked in a Bull market, period. The money managment with the whole Monte Carlo thing can be reduced down to the concept of Expectancy, which is valid. (The guy who taught the Monte Carlo thing called me months later fishing for trading ideas, saying he did not do too well: he was one of the absolvents of Tharp's "Supertrader" program (I think the cost was something like $ 50k then), but apparently was not very successful in making money himself. I have no firsthand idea that Van has actually spent "20 years modeling the world's best traders"- that is what HE says. Perhaps he studied the psychological aspect of these people. And-BTW-the Market Wizard book contains at least one "Supertrader" that I know of who is a joke or worse (Krauss). The psychology stuff is interesting, but Tharp claims that psychology is the key to everything. I have come to see this as a big mistake and a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you do not really know what you are doing and have a marginal 'system" trying to eke out a statistical edge with a low percentage of winners, you will have a high chance of having series of losers in a row: then you will have psychological issues, which then can be helped by Van Tharp. However, if you learn how to really trade and learn to see how the market moves, your psychology improves dramatically, all by itself.... I had some arguments with Van about this, look for a post of mine on his trading forum called "myths about trading". There- just saved you some money. Happy New Year.
i read maybe a year ago on tiger shark trading a few articles by brett steenbargen,hes a trader and a shrink and lives i think in western suburbs of chicago, for $6k you could see him one on one several times or buy one of his books for $35,he makes a lot of sense,no b.s.
Hmmm, might this be the same "scientific community" that rcanfiel continually references as proving that TA is useless? I agree with this. Unless you have a good wad of money you're burning to toss away, spend the time with the books. Whether it's Tharp, Douglas or Steenbarger - many of the concepts are variations on a theme. Even so, they are useful to many traders, since after they have a decent methodology, most people still cannot excel at trading due to psychological restraints. While Tharp has many good lessons / concepts within his work, there is also a significant amount of 'noise' which can distract a person from the truly functional content. If you haven't already, I'd start w/ Douglas's "Trading in the Zone". R
The only thing that you need to learn about in relation to Van Tharp is: Expectancy Once you understand the concept of the average win per trade sample set, then you are on your way to mastering the art of gambling ! Everything else is just part of the Mind Game !