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You are a... Strategic Trader

Your StrategicTrader Report

Thank you for taking the Tharp Trader Test, which evaluates psychological tendencies relating to how you gather, store, comprehend and act upon information and input. After modeling and studying thousands of traders, I’m able to help you understand a little about yourself with just a few questions, based on a much lengthier profile that we use to evaluate traders. This test was designed simply to introduce you to some of the issues that affect your trading. After all, YOU are the single most important factor in your trading performance but how well do you understand that? How well do you know yourself, and what kind of internal forces are at work when you trade? The Tharp Trader Test helps you identify strengths that should help you trade and challenges that may interfere with your trading. It also helps evaluate your possession of the three core qualities of top traders:

1. The ability to see the big picture, new possibilities and connections between things.

2. Making decisions based on logic and analysis.

3. Being decisive, orderly and doing things sequentially.

Congratulations! As a Strategic Trader, you have all three core qualities. You have potential to excel in the markets—if you are willing to do a few things.

First, are you willing to take complete responsibility for your trading results? There is no room to blame the market, your broker, your education, or anything else. Second, can you change your thinking so that you treat your trading as a business? Initially, this means writing a thorough business plan. Third, could you develop a trading system that fits you? Most people want to start here, at the technical side and back end of trading;

however, I recommend saving this until you have completed the other tasks first. My studies have revealed that your psychological biases and issues will affect your trading system development if you have not taken the time to work on yourself first as the core of your trading.

All those things just mentioned are what you can read about in our weekly newsletter. Thank you for signing up for it. Should you find it less than useful, you can click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter anytime you desire.

Helping traders become their best is our mission at the Van Tharp Institute and we’ve helped thousands of traders do that for over 25 years. We offer excellent educational and training programs designed for both beginning and advanced traders/investors. If you have questions or would just like more information, please visit our web site at www.vantharp.com.

So let’s get to your report. The next page describes your trader type based on your answers. Look for what rings true for you and keep in mind that no individual will match up exactly with a profile. Next, you’ll discover how to leverage your strengths and challenges to become a better and more profitable trader. And finally, we list the trader types and their potential for success in the markets.

YOU probably live in a world of ideas and strategic planning. You value intelligence, knowledge, and being competent. These are great qualities for a trader/investor. In fact, you have this and all three core qualities that are essential to being a great trader (i.e., you have the ability to see the big picture, new possibilities and connections between things; you make decisions based on logic and analysis and you are decisive, orderly and do things sequentially). You have an original mind and a great drive to implement your ideas and achieve your goals. Thus, if trading success is important to you, you’ll probably find a way to achieve it.

You are quick to see patterns in the market and develop a perspective that allows you to take advantage of it. Consequently, we recommend that you study what great traders typically do. If you do, you’ll probably become one of them.

You are an avid learner and thinker. Understanding trading and trading systems will probably be something that is quite easy for you to grasp. You easily understand abstract and complex theories and can be a master of conceptual and analytical thinking.

If you become committed to trading success, you’ll probably have no problem developing a business plan to help you succeed as a trader. In addition, you tend to be independent, which is an essential quality of traders, and have high standards for your performance as a trader.

As a trader, you’ll probably focus on observing the markets and generating ideas

Strategic Trader TypeAs a Trader... you have all three core qualities that are essential to being a great trader (i.e., you have the ability to see the big picture, new possibilities and connections between things; you make decisions based on logic and analysis and you are decisive, orderly and do things sequentially). You have an original mind and a great drive to implement your ideas and achieve your goals.

Example TraderPaul Tudor Jones

Our best example of a strategic trader is Paul Tudor Jones. Jones has been one of the world’s best hedge fund managers. And when the funds he had under management surpassed a billion dollars, he hired a well-known motivational speaker to coach him on what we now call “top-down discipline.”

Today he lives by an unbelievable routine and schedule because he simply must be the best. He’s never had a down year. His worst performance was in 2000, when offshore Tudor BVI Global Portfolio fund delivered only 11.6%. According to Forbes, Paul Tudor Jones ranks 123 among the world’s richest people.

Paul Tudor Jones is known for saying, “I’m always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Don’t focus on making money, focus on protecting what you have.”

and possibilities for generating profits. This is one of the primary reasons that, if you commit to it, you have the potential to be an excellent trader/investor. In addition, since you have all of the primary qualities that most of the top traders have, if you apply yourself, then your chances of success are very high.

TRADING STReNGTHS• Originality and drive to be your best;

willingness to follow your ideas through to completion.

• Quickly see patterns and possibilities, with the ability to rapidly hypothesize and generate low-risk trading ideas.

• You could probably generate a trading business plan and trading systems quite easily and naturally.

TRADING CHALLeNGeS• You may be so logical that you don’t

recognize when emotions are causing you to self-destruct.

• You have a strong desire to be right, even to the extent of perfectionism. This might cause you to never actually trade because you continually are trying to develop or buy better systems.

• You may be susceptible to the loss trap. Therefore, you may not honor your stops because you want to be right about your trades.

LeVeRAGING YOUR STReNGTHS AND ADDReSSING YOUR CHALLeNGeS AS A STRATeGIC TRADeR

As a Strategic Trader, you have high aspirations and standards and are more than capable of doing things well on your own. However, I know you want to be the very best and learn from the very best.

LeVeRAGING YOUR STReNGTHSStrength #1 – Originality, DriveYou have the kind of psychological profile that lends itself to success in the markets. Now that you know that, what do you do? Start here. Free – Read the Article “What Is Involved in Peak Performance

Trading?”

LeVeRAGING YOUR STReNGTHS AND ADDReSSING YOUR CHALLeNGeS AS A STRATeGIC TRADeR

Strength #2 – Rapidly Identify PatternsIf you are trading, are you using a complete and well thought out system? Do you know what a complete trading system entails? If not, your trading results would benefit greatly by understanding that and as a Strategic Trader, you can excel at systems development. Free – Read the Article “What Is a Trading System?”

Strength #3 – Ability to PlanYou could probably generate a trading business plan and trading systems quite easily and naturally. Professional traders use a business plan as a guide for their business and trading systems as guides to their trading. Do you view your trading as a business yet? Are you trading systems? If not, read the following article. Free – Read the Article “17 Steps”

ADDReSSING YOUR CHALLeNGeSChallenge #1 – Recognizing Mistakes: Logic over EmotionAs a Strategic Trader you are probably so logical, that you don’t even recognize when your emotions are causing you to self-destruct. You must overcome the tendency to have your logic hinder your ability to recognize mistakes; repeated mistakes equal self-sabotage.Free – Read the Article “Mistakes”

Challenge #2 – PerfectionismYou have a strong desire to be right, even to the extent of perfectionism. This might cause you to never actually trade because you are trying to develop or buy better systems continually.

You probably don’t need people telling you what to do and may even find that your perfectionism has served you in many ways throughout your life. However, in the trading arena it would be practical to avoid perfectionism so that you are able to learn the best ways to evaluate trading systems.Free – Read the Article “The Fundamentals

of Tharp Think”

As a Strategic Trader, you have high aspirations and standards and are more than capable of doing things well on your own. However, I know you want to be the very best and learn from the very best.

As a Strategic Trader, you like clarity of information.

Continue reading to learn more.

Challenge #3 – Need to be RightYou may not honor your stops because you want to be right about your trades. This can lead to an even bigger issue and make you susceptible to the “loss trap.” To win at trading, you must learn about the loss trap and how to overcome it.Free – Read the Article “The Loss Trap”

ADDITIONAL ReSOURCeS

In addition to the articles mentioned above, the Van Tharp Institute has a number of books, courses, and aids to help the Strategic Trader become better.

As a Strategic Trader, you like clarity in your information. I have provided a lot of information on successful trading plainly organized in my book Super Trader: Make Consistent Profits in Good and Bad Markets. The five sections of the book delve into the key areas for every trader to focus on for success: working on yourself, business planning, trading systems, position sizing, and monitoring your psychology. Whether these terms are familiar or brand new to you, Super Trader’s fifty chapters are all short and each has one or two actionable ideas to help you improve your trading. It’s become my favorite book and there are fun parts in it you would probably enjoy. If you are interested, the best way to get Super Trader is online at Amazon.

The second edition of the Trade your Way to Financial Freedom book contains a number of chapters that Strategic Traders would find especially useful. The book has a lot of material on trading systems. Most companies that offer trading systems sell a setup and an entry as the whole system but that is only a part (and a relatively unimportant part) of what I view as a trading system. The book includes discussions of several trading systems and a number of ideas that can be easily turned into systems. Strategic Traders have a natural inclination to put this kind of information to great use.

As a Strategic Trader, I know you have a strong commitment to become the best you can be. If you are ready to back that up with some time and effort, I recommend the Peak Performance Home Study Course. It has five volumes and four CDs of readings and exercises. Strategic Traders will find value in all five volumes but I’d like to point out two of them in particular. Volume 2 covers the topic of stress. Strategic Traders tend to be highly logical and the stress process can involve some illogical inputs. This means that you

might not recognize stress, yet your trading will endure the effects of that stress. Volume 4 on discipline would also be very valuable for you. Discipline involves feelings, which, as a Strategic Trader, you are not attuned to understand. This blind area for you can lead to self-sabotage. Have you ever known what you should do but then do something else? That’s self-sabotage and as strange as it may sound to your highly logical brain, recognizing your feelings will help you be more successful. The 5th volume on sound decisions will help you improve an area that is already strong for you. Learn the importance of decision strategies to help you make even better decisions.

Of course, we have a series of other products and workshops that you may find useful in time, but, Super Trader, Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom and the Peak Performance course are truly the starting points before going on to other study other topics.

For more information, click on the links in this report or visit our web site at www.vantharp.com.

Again, thank you very much for taking the Tharp Trader Test and good luck to you.

Sincerely,

Van K. TharpTrading CoachFounder and President,The Van Tharp Institutewww.vantharp.com

P.S. Keep reading if you’d like to see a complete list of Tharp Trader Types and their potential for success in the markets.

LIST OF ThARP TRADER TyPES AND ThEIR POTENTIAL FOR SuCCESS IN ThE MARkETS

HIGH POTeNTIAL FOR MARKeT SUCCeSS:

Strategic TraderPlanning Trader

GOOD POTeNTIAL FOR MARKeT SUCCeSS WITH SOMe WORK:

Detailed TraderFacilitative TraderInnovative Trader Spontaneous TraderIndependent TraderAdministrative TraderValues Driven TraderSocially Responsible TraderAccurate TraderAdventurous Trader

POTeNTIAL FOR MARKeT SUCCeSS WITH LOTS OF WORK OR HAVe OTHeRS MANAGe THeIR MONeY:

Supportive TraderArtistic TraderFun Loving Trader

www.vantharp.com102A Commonwealth Ct, Cary NC USA T 919.466.0043 F 919-466-0408

Precaution

What if you have read this report and only some of it or even very little of it seems to apply to you? That’s possible. To make this test fast to take (and very low cost!), I kept the sampling questions to a minimum; the resulting trader profile is merely a rough estimate of who you are. If it seems off-base, you could consider taking the test again or simply just be aware that the results in this profile are not you; they are an extremely simple model of you. In most cases, however, I have found it to be fairly accurate. If a more scientifically rigorous psychological profile interests you, we offer that on our web site in the products section.