Customer Reviews

Super Trader: Make Consistent Profits in Good and Bad Markets

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am pleased to be the first one to review this book.

I am also thankful for discovering Van Tharps' as someone that changed my approach and understanding of trading. He really helped me to destroy all strongholds that was making my trade a blind fly. I read first Trading your way to financial freedom which is a really break through on what it takes to be a successful trade. After reading it I realized how obvious it is and how people just don't see it. So I am happy that I was blind now I can see.

If you haven't read any of Van Tharp as yet I would not recommend starting with Super Trader because it doesn't spend much time to discuss new concepts and I believe the book assumes some prior knowledge. For me that am already familiar with his concepts I cruised reading Super Trader and it helped me to reinforce all principles that I already grasped from previous books and articles I read. Also his does an excellent job bringing it all together.

I then suggest to read first "Trade Your way..." and then "Super Trader" will be much more valuable and easy to understand because it doesn't go as deep as "Trade your Way..." does in some key concepts such as R multiple, Risk Management and Positioning Size.

The book is very well structured and it is organized in an order of priority in what it takes to be a successful trader. The book spend a fair bit of pages on the topic of psychology and working on yourself. This is crucial and Van emphasises its importance even further. I reckon that's the best part of this book.

Also it provides good frameworks to how to work on yourself and your business plan to get into trading successfully.

I also love his approach totally opposing to on size fits all. What is important is what fits your beliefs. That's fantastic.

Very pragmatic, structured and concise. This book I also consider a quick reference book to always go back and remember what is important in trading and I intend to always go back and revisit it from time to time to check if I am doing everything "by the book".

Let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of Van Tharp's other material. It's always been easy to understand, useful and most importantly on topic. When I buy a book about "Making consistent profits in good and bad markets", that's what I expect to get. It appears Van has truly gone off the deep with this one - it's almost like a late night infomercial for a Christian seminar series. Since when did "God" have anything to do with trading?

Some examples of topics that this book discusses:

Keeping a "God Box" - Van recommends keeping a black box of sorts that you should little notes of your lifes problems into and "give them to God". I understand his concept but this is too far off topic for a book about making profits in good or bad markets.

Sending and receiving "Internet jokes" - Van recommends we take time to send our friends jokes and comic strips from the Internet, and make sure to always save the chain email jokes that your friends have sent you. Really? What happened here Van?

Van recommends reading "Vitamins for the Soul" - a book by a "renowned vibration healer and psychic". Come'on, seriously?

This book trails so far into spirituality that most of the middle chapters are purely about God and finding your inner happiness in the world.

Can I have my $18 back please? I agree with the previous reviewer, you're better off buying a couple more shares of your favourite stock, it will make you more money.

If you're buying Tharp, buy "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom".

This book is one of the essential books you will need if you are serious about becoming a successful trader. While this book does not have systems to trade or charts with moving averages and technical indicators, it does have what is most important to becoming a successful trader. In depth information about successful trader psychology and risk management. These two elements of trading determine whether you are profitable or lose most of your money. I am an active and successful trader and I agree 100% with the principles presented in this book. Van Tharp advises to trade with a clear mind and do not allow issues in your life to creep into your trading. He gives you a web address where you can take a trader test to see what kind of trader you are. You must build a trading system that fits your personality to be successful. He covers all types of systems for traders but this book does not go into detail about specific entries and exits. Your trading system and entry are not as important as risk management and your discipline to follow your system. If you follow a tested system with a long term positive return to risk, and you stop your losses at predetermined amounts, while also letting your winners run with trailing stops, and are able to keep your ego out of your trades, you will be successful. As a new trader I never understood why books talked about these concepts so much, as a seasoned trader I know how ego and emotions can take over and you start wishing and hoping while losing your precious capital. I now understand why all the books I read years ago urged stop losses and taking them quickly when they are hit, this one principle will save you a small fortune. I really enjoyed how the author taught the concept of risk in this book through the use of 1R representing a unit of risk. He shows how to calculate whether a system is profitable and the expectancy of profits through measuring the R variables of 30 trades. Risk $200 and make $1000 you have a +5R winner. If you average +1R a trade for 30 trades you can expect to have +30R in profits which would be $6000. Very useful concept in understanding how to make a living trading.
I am one of the top reviewers of trading books here on Amazon having read over one hundred of the best trading books. I have also traded for over 10 years, and been very profitable for the last 7 years, even making profits in 2008. While other reviewers have criticized Van Tharp for being a teacher instead of an active trader, I say that Van Tharp has traded on the past but his passion is teaching and running a business. I am very picky about who I take advice about trading from, wanting the credentials of a seasoned trader who has managed and traded real money. To me Van Tharp is like a Bill Walsh was in the NFL, no one criticized Bill Walsh for not getting and playing in a game, because he was so good at coaching Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Van Tharp is to trading what Bill Walsh was to the NFL, he has a passion for teaching and creating systems so super stars can go to new levels of achievement. This book is easy to read and understand and has captured tradings key principles to success, it is a must have. I highly recommend.

First, I gave this book a 3 stars on the basis that I have come across this material before, so there virtually was nothing new for me here. Still, that does not change the usefulness of the material contained in the book.

So you'll, among other things, learn:

a) How to (and why you should) create a business plan--- remember trading is a business
b) Understand and overcome negative psychological thinking
c) Have (create) very clear goals
d) Understand the technicals of trading, e.g position sizing.
e) Given YOUR personality create a trading system that is congruent to YOUR personality, needs and skills
f) Do not ever stray from your plan and goal

Oh, well, this is what I can remember right now.

I don't think is waste of money. However, I was a big fan of Mr. Tharp and I think that "Trade Your Way to Finantial Freedom" was the best trading book I ever read. So, my expectations were very high. "Super Trader" disapointed me. Too much psychological and spiritual stuffs for me.

I just finished writing up my notes on Van Tharp's "Super Trader" for future reference. It's a must read for all but the very experienced traders and I believe even they can learn something from the book.

Most traders or would be traders are interested in systems, entries, exits, etc. There are thousands of books on those topics. This book says very little about those areas other than that entries are the least important and exits are the most important. Instead, it focuses on the business and psychology of trading which is actually more important than the system.

The book is divided into five parts. You can read the table of contents in Amazon. Trading can be considered a multi legged stool including the system, having a detailed business plan, position sizing (money management), minimizing mistakes, and trading psychology. If any one leg is missing, trading success is unlikely or difficult at best. This book covers all those areas with insights from an author who has been in the trading business, been around top successful traders, and coaching traders since 1983. (Tharp was interviewed as a candidate for the famous Richard Dennis "Turtle" experiment). Tharp knows the business of trading and you would do well to learn from his experience.

If I have one criticism of the book, it's with the cartoon drawings in the book. They lighten the book and might cause people to take the book less seriously. Don't be fooled, the content of this book is critical to trading. Also, don't get hung up by the reviews talking about spirituality in the book. Any such references are extremely few and so fleeting as to hardly be noticed.

If you like Tharp's work, I would start with this book, then the Financial Freedom books, then end up with "Van Tharp's Definitive Guide to Position Sizing", one of the most important trading books to come out in years.

Super Trader will get you correctly grounded in the trading business so you will have the right perspective for success before you get caught up in the morass of entries, exits, and trading systems.

You cannot be a serious trader without this book in my opinion. This book belongs in the library of everyone who even thinks about dabling in the market place. I started off two years ago when I was twenty, trying to day trade with a thousand dollars, only because that's the only thing I heard makes you money in the short term. Eventually I found book after book that sold me on their style, CANSLIM (excellent System), Trend Following (interesting System), Chart Reading (unique), Value Investing (good), Growth Investing (Good too), but none of them really spoke to me. They were all other people's styles, and personally, I've never done well with other people's work. Diets failed me until I created my own. I played Magic the Gathering when I was younger and lost with every one of those special winning decks, until I created my own, and started winning contest. From Education to Cooking, I learned quite quickly that until you make something your own, you'll never be more than mediocre.

But the stock market, well that's complicated I thought, these professionals have spent thirty to forty years doing what they're doing, Warren Buffett's made 50 Billion Dollars, George Sorros has made 7 Billion Dollars, William O'Neil's made millions, Jim Cramer was a successful Hedge Fund Manager, he has to know what he's talking about... and that's when I found Van K. Tharp, first his book Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom, which I'll also Review, then this book, Super Trader. Van Tharp and Mark Tier's The Winning Investment Habits of Warrent Buffet and George Soros are, in my opinion the God sent books for anyone who wwants to get into the markets.

This book will help you study yourself, figure out your goals, and create a system that works with your personality, your ideas, and everything else. Because of this, I found the options market, and just starting, unlike purely buying stocks (even though I was quite good at it), I feel right at home in this market, and have already seen some major successes. Van K. Tharp is in my opinion a genius, and this book is one of his two masterpieces.

Great book. It is actually one of the great books talking about trading, but it does so without too uch of the charts. But it is a most fun to read.

Van Tharp's latest book, "Super Trader", is one of the few (of hundreds I've read) trading books I highly recommend that traders buy and read at least twice. It's just that good.

What I like best about this book is Dr. Van Tharp's extremely useful R-distribution/position sizing technique, in the last section of the book. He also focuses carefully on the trading psychology that's needed for success, including having a business plan and specific strategies that traders can use to avoid making common trading mistakes.

I spent the last 3 days reading this during evenings, and it was thoroughly useful. As a successful trader myself, I'm glad to have found so much of value in Van Tharp's book, especially similarities that his approach has to mine, in using a much more math-focused/risk management R type approach to mechanically scaling in and out of trades, and using expected distributions based on different scaling and risk parameters.

I'm an expert on momentum breakout day trading, and focus on tape reading and specific chart patterns, having trained thousands in these techniques. What I've found that's also essential to success, that Van Tharp so correctly details in his Super Trader book, is the addition of position sizing, the 'whole trader' psychology and approach to success on a mental/nlp anchoring and success focus, and the mechanics of the math behind the trades, which he's correct in having traders focus on.

While chart patterns are an important 'leg of the tripod' to successful trading, especially for volatility scanning, the mental and math sides of the equation are equally important, in fact more so. This is a remarkably useful book.

The most useful part of the book to me was the later chapters detailing R-distribution and position sizing techniques. The earlier chapters on the mental edge are absolutely spot-on as well, and all traders would benefit from reading this. Well done, Van Tharp - this is an excellent book I encourage traders of all kinds (forex, equities, day/swing/position) to read and benefit from. Bravo! A++


To trading success,

Ken Calhoun, Pres.
Daytrading University

As a standalone book, this work leaves much more to be desired. It deals with the topic of psychology integrated with trading. However, for students of market trading - this book leaves many white spaces. It is really not a complete work. If you are serious about trading youneed to revisit the writings of Toby Crabel and Linda Raschke in order to learn from real traders and hedge fund managers. These could be found here or on Ebay. Many of their works are already out of print.