i am in australia,last year,Dr THARP came to sydney to have lots of lectures. How about DR THARP in USA? How about his book "trade your way to finance freedom"and "financial freedom through electronic day trading"in USA? Thanks so much
first book was well worth the money. At the time it was truly cutting edge material. Now much of the information is old hat. Everyone on the web and elitetrader pushes it like its their own stuff. Expectancy is now the orthodoxy. At the time he wrote the book it was a very rare guru who said you could be wrong more than you were right and still make money. Unfornately for Tharp I think he had too much integrity to call it "Tharp Expectancy" which an IP lawyer might have told him to do. By the way you can pick up a lot of good information at his trading website and from his newsletter. Never really liked the second book because I never bought into the co-authors "talent". I spoke with him many times. Nice enough and smart enough guy, but he never once had his own unique trading insights. Plus he used to say scaling out throws off the r multiples and he did not seem to understand that what you lose on the big winners you save on the profits you got to book instead of taking a full loss.
It seems that there is an argument over whether "scaling out" makes any sense. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78975
there is an argument but - but not if you put it in the expectancy frame work as described by tharp. Its just two separate trades.
The anti scaling out guy seems to believe he can maximize every trade. If you believe that than you would be against scaling out as well. Real traders understand that is b.s.
Actually I don't think that's his argument at all. Let's say you hold two contracts. You're saying sell one at a predetermined spot. That way if it goes back down you have something in your pocket. The problem comes in when it doesn't go back down. Instead, it goes way up. You're way you're making a profit on half the contracts. His way he's making money on all the contracts. And his point is simply that if you think about it logically, holding all the contracts will always be superior, eventhough sometimes the market turns back down and you didn't make the small profit that you might have made by selling half. I've gone through my own trades where I've done considerable scaling out...it has worked against me over time. You might want to read the thread...alot of good arguments there. OldTrader
... and B1S2 runs a pretty good trading thread to boot. So while everyone might not agree that his philosophy makes sense for intra-day traders, it does have a certain validity, and it seems to work for him, so I just let'em have it. To the point, Dr. van Tharps book is an excellent resource for new/intermediate traders, and a great refresher for guys who are "pros". It reinforces the total knowledge base required for effective trading (it's not just about finding the holy grail of entries, which doesn't actually exist, and is the wrong place to look for "it" anyway), and keeps you focused on the fundamentals. Anywho, good trading all, JJ
================== Peter; Excellant risk reward ratio; books are like that ,especially those 2. Hardly ever scale out short; longs , find it helpful, especially since tops are an area, not a precise piont, except in hindsight.