A10, Stock Trader Dude

Tharp is at it again with pushing his oneness blessing course. Perhaps when it gets tougher to sell educational training courses he makes progress getting people to give him money for a lower priced course which gets them to feel good before he can take them for thousands of dollars on a blueprint for trading course.

Don’t you wonder if he offers to teach you how to be a profitable trader and learn all the important stuff to make a fortune then why doesn’t he just record the training sessions and post them online for free? The guys who make fortunes in the investment world aren’t fussing around giving seminars to teach you how to be profitable in your trading.

But since Tharp doesn’t make any money from directly trading the markets, but from selling seminars, so he doesn’t have much else to do. But here’s the interesting thing: This is the first time I’ve noticed in his email newsletter where he states he is trading.

That totally surprised me – normally when pressed for details about his trading he would say he invests passively with his “students” or people he coached to improve their trading ability.

But that answer never really made sense compared to what he offers – So, you’re claiming to teach people how to be great traders and make a living trading in the markets when you have never been a great trader or made a living from directly trading in the markets?

Does that make sense? But some people buy out of hope that someone else has the answer.

How do I know Tharpy doesn’t have the answers?

He’s been wrong about his biggest conviction – that the market was in red light mode and was going to significantly fall and remain depressed in a bear market. His safe strategies for financial freedom book didn’t seem to make anyone any money. And at the time, during 2004, he couldn’t stop himself from promoting his belief in his book and newsletter about a bear market that was going to happen in the near-term. He kept talking about his red-light market mode indicator for several years and saying we were due for a massive bear market and then he dropped it before the bear market arrived in 2008 and 2009, hardly mentioning that he didn’t make any money when the stock market finally did decline – he seemed to be caught unaware just like everyone else. There were no significant developments or insight from his newsletters in the preceding months before the market decline.

And his newsletter profile of a system he was showing for illustrative purposes to be a safe stock buying platform didn’t make any money and he dropped it. The stocks he selected weren’t behaving as orderly as he wanted – the share prices started to decrease – and while he did track some losses in it to show people the actual unflattering results – it showed me that he has no great trading ideas, and even he has trouble implementing a system that fits his style, so how is it possible to believe he can teach anyone how to develop a profitable trading system?

Let’s look at a recent email advertisement he sent: (I’m adding my comments as we go along)

New! Three-Day Oneness Awakening Workshop

One level of transformation, for example, involves adopting the basic model of successful trading that I’ve developed over the years. That means you need to start thinking in term of reward-to-risk ratios (R-multiples), to adopt a trading method that fits you and the current market type, to think carefully about your objectives, and to use position sizing™ strategies to achieve your objectives. These concepts are just scratching the surface of the successful trading model. (Scratch the surface? In interviews and in his newsletters and books for the past ten years he didn’t have much else to say about improving performance.)

Again, that is just one level of the several levels of transformation that I think we provide.

In fulfilling our mission to help others transform themselves, I believe that I need to transform myself first. As a result, I’ve done just about everything that has appealed to me in terms of transformation over the years.

• I’ve worked through A Course in Miracles (ACIM) twice.
• I’m an NLP Master Practitioner and an associate trainer. In fact, I did enough NLP until I was convinced I could model any behavioral skill set.
• I completed the Avatar Course (twice), the Avatar Masters Course, and the Avatar Wizards course (also twice).
• I attended basic and advanced Landmark Education courses.
• I went as far as I could go through Scientology (from a former practitioner who had developed her own technology). This was hundreds of hours of transformational work. I stopped when she said I was at a quasi-spiritual level. I didn’t see a benefit from going any further.
• I completed Byron Katie’s School for the Work.
• I participated in the Sedona Method course that was recorded and is now sold as a part of the home study. I’ve also purchased and gone through all of the Sedona Method programs and have attended several 7-day Sedona Method retreats.
• I went through Bruce DuVe’s “transform your body” diets and methods for over nine months.
• I’ve completed Libby Adam’s transformational mediation course several times.

All of this has been accompanied by massive work on my own in which I’ve followed up on the material from each of these various trainings.

My Journey into Oneness

All of that personal work pales in comparison to the journey I began in early 2008. That journey involved becoming a Oneness Blessing giver and eventually a Oneness Trainer. If I were to rate my personal journey, I’d say that I’ve traveled 1,000 miles, and at least 700 of those miles have been the result of becoming involved in the Oneness Process. I began my transformation journey 30 years ago and started working with the Oneness movement only 3 years ago. 70% of my total progress in the last 30 years, however, has come within the last three years. Oneness has been that significant for me.

Here are a few of the examples:

• I developed a feeling form of internal guidance after completing ACIM; however, after going through the Oneness Process, I developed a very deep and personal guidance. I can ask that guidance questions and get profound answers whenever I need them.
• Immediately after becoming a blessing giver (July 2008), our business started to take off dramatically. And while the markets were terrible (and we usually don’t do well during terrible markets), we set record months. (One thing does not necessarily relate to the other. It implies that financial rewards could be forthcoming to the reader.)
• Most of my staff members really enjoy getting blessings and have become blessing givers. (How about the ones who don’t? They might have an interesting story or perspective.)
• I developed a new advanced psychological workshop (Peak 203) out of my experiences with bliss while doing the Oneness processes.
• Over 70% of my Super Traders have become blessing givers and taken the Oneness Awakening course. Now, many of them are pursuing local Oneness activities in their communities. Those that have done so are making huge leaps in their levels of consciousness, which has an incredible effect on their approach to trading and their profitability. (No link to a list of examples?)
• When I give blessings to our clients during some of the psychological workshops, we usually see huge changes in their ability to understand and integrate the material presented. (In one of Tharpy’s newsletters last year there was an interesting interview with someone who went through analyzing and explaining how he played with his feelings and what he learned from the course – a great personal description – but no figurative pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In the end he chose not to feel bad. That about sums it up – choose not to feel or succumb to negative or unhealthy feelings.)
• For my Super Traders in December 2010, I presented a Oneness Awakening Course followed by a one day technical course, Trading in the Now. In January, I traded the Trading in the Now techniques for about 15 days. I don’t normally trade intraday because of lack of time, but I just wanted to prove to myself what was possible. I made around 30 trades and about 80% of those trades were profitable; the SQN® rating of that trading was nearly 10. (Very surprising to me, first time I’ve noticed him talking about trading directly. What he doesn’t say is how much profit there was on thirty trades. Why is this important? Well, when you ask for thousands of dollars to join a seminar on profitable trading, people want to know the dollar value of your experiment. I’m sure you would ask them about the level they trade at for your coaching program, right?)
• And, most importantly, I’ve had numerous experiences that I would call bliss/rapture that have come from doing the various Oneness trainings. (But he chooses not to list a single one or link to a list of them for reference, so I’ll just guess how meaningful they are then, so it’s like that, huh?)

There is a lot more that I could talk about, but I think you get the idea. (The idea I picked up is that this guy has constantly been searching – and all his talk about developing  good trading habits and such discipline was always a little off base when he struggled for years to address being overweight. I think he finally handled this, but for years it seemed like he was saying I can get you to train your mind to do the most difficult thing in the world, such as, making a living from trading in the financial markets but he didn’t have the discipline to train himself to be more healthy with walking or doing whatever he needed to do lose the excess weight. And in one newsletter from 2004 or 2005 he discussed holding back on entering a transformational life coaching program. It just wasn’t a priority then. Then he raved about it with an endorsement and now it’s on his list as another thing he tried.)

Originally, I became a Oneness Trainer because I wanted to organize the local blessing givers in the Raleigh/Durham/Cary area. The last thing I’d planned to do was offer the Oneness training as a part of our core curriculum through the Van Tharp Institute.  So far, all of our Oneness Courses have been sold out and we’ve produced about 70 new blessing givers through those courses. (I’m still waiting to hear about all those individual miracles and amazing transformations experiences…nothing to share about those 70 folks? I’m going to start selling this oneness awakening stuff, too.)

What Past Attendees Have to Say

Guess what – he lists a few positive comments – no surprise there. Nobody said they didn’t like it or it was a waste of time?

And the quotes he shared had one thing in common – nothing specific about individual experiences. It could have looked like this:

Nothing specific

Nothing specific

Nothing specific

So I decided to look into descriptions of Oneness Awakening and Oneness blessing away from Tharpy and his sales pitch and here’s some of what I found:

The new Oneness Awakening course, taught over two or three days, is designed simply to help a person move beyond the limitations and structures of the mind. When we are identified with the mind– when we filter our experience through our past conditioning– we are in fact not living, but merely existing, merely surviving. When we live within the structures of the mind, we are not actually alive at all. The purpose of life is simply to live– to experience reality as it is– that natural state where the senses are alive, the heart is open, in direct contact with the Oneness in everything.

The course will make use of all of the various teachings and processes that the Trainer has received from the Oneness University and through their own life experience. It is not a course to convey information or to help you to work on yourself, but rather a vehicle through which to show you directly what life is like outside the realm of the mind– that vast peace, stillness, and love that is revealed in direct experience.

This is a very sacred, divinely led process which culminates in the transmission of a very special Deeksha called the Mukthi Deeksha, given through an ancient spiritual technology called Padukas. Padukas are symbols that represent the feet of the Divine, a powerful cross-cultural understanding of surrender. What makes this Deeksha unique is that it comes directly from the Divine and is not routed through the human being. It is a direct transfer from the Divine to the recipient, with the sole purpose of taking the recipient into the state of Oneness and Awakening—that same state enjoyed by saints, sages, and mystics world over.

The Mukthi Deeksha is transferred as part of a three-fold process, which serves to prepare the recipient to receive this Divine benediction. First, the physical body is prepared through dancing, an ancient ritual practiced by all cultures and traditions as a way to open to the Divine. Through this dancing, the kundalini is activated and the chakras are opened. Next, the participant is guided through a process of chanting to fill the mind and unconscious with the presence of the Divine and to clear away any remaining obstacles to the full receipt of the Deeksha. This chanting serves to “program” the mind and energy body for Awakening. Finally, the participants receive the Mukthi Deeksha itself, in a sacred ceremony involving the touching Padukas or other Sacred Religious objects of your own faith.

Once a participant goes through the Oneness Awakening Course, they are initiated as a Oneness Deeksha Giver, and will be shown how to give Deeksha to others.

— and a more descriptive overview of a oneness blessing course —

What is the Oneness Blessing?
The Oneness Blessing (also known as Deeksha) is a non-denominational benediction.   It is the
transfer of Divine energy which over time is designed to bring about the state of Oneness in the
recipient.

What happens during the Oneness Blessing?
The Oneness Blessing initiates a neurobiological change in the brain that enables the senses to be
free from the interference of the mind.  When the senses are unclouded by the mind’s interpretations,
a natural clarity of perception occurs with accompanying spontaneous feelings of joy, inner calmness,
and connection to the Oneness in everything.

How is the Oneness Blessing transferred?  What might I experience?
The Oneness facilitator transfers the Oneness Blessing by placing his or her hands on the crown of
your head, usually for about one minute.  Experiences during the Oneness Blessing vary.  Sometimes they are strong, sometimes subtle, and sometimes delayed until much later.  The recipient may experience a tingling sensation in the head, blissful energy flowing through the body, or nothing at all.  Whatever the experience, the recipient can trust that the process of Oneness has begun.  It is a process that will lead gradually (or sometimes spontaneously) into your own spiritual awakening.

Who can offer the Oneness Blessing to others?
The Oneness Blessing can be given by anyone who has received training by a Oneness Blessing Trainer and participated in the sacred Mukthi Deeksha Process.  Those who have received this training are referred to as Oneness facilitators or Oneness Blessing/Deeksha givers.  The Oneness Blessing giver acts as a channel for the energy to transfer to the recipient.

Can anyone receive the benefits of the Oneness Blessing?
Yes. All adults and children can receive the Oneness Blessing at any time.  The energy will do what it is meant to do for each individual.

What if I wish to become a Oneness facilitator and give the Oneness Blessing to others?
To become a Oneness facilitator it is necessary to attend a Oneness Awakening Course with a Trainer who has attended the Oneness Training Course at Oneness University in India..  Go to the Onenesss Blessing website www.onenessuniversity.org for more information.

Does the Oneness Blessing adhere to any particular religion or belief?
The Oneness Blessing is not connected to any religion, particular belief or spiritual path.  The Oneness Blessing is given each day to people all over the world, people of all spiritual practices and national origins.  It is not necessary to change one’s religion or adopt a new guru or spiritual master to receive the Oneness Blessing or to offer the Oneness Blessing to others.

Why has the Oneness Blessing come at this time?
Our planet and all of humanity are currently undergoing a major evolutionary transformation.  This has
an impact on our environment, our social structures, and our individual and collective consciousness.  The co-founders of the Oneness University, Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma, are here to help us with this transformation.

—

Here’s what I found: The general idea from Oneness University in India is not to charge people — blessings should be shared to help people and communities.

And here is an example of a healing exercise, not sure how closely it matches Oneness protocol but it was from a Oneness themed website:

AN EXERCISE TO HEAL YOURSELF
We recommend this exercise to you. First, notice the hurt. Look within and, in
meditation, examine it objectively. We do not recommend re-living the pain or reexperiencing
the emotional trauma for this can cause it to grow into an awesome
spectacle, an enormous genie let out of the bottle. One can become afraid and
overwhelmed. Therefore, view it objectively. Raise above your personality self. View from
another perspective, like you are watching from outside yourself. See if you can discern
its origin. Soon, many thoughts arrive and the mind begins to sort through these. All sorts
of extenuating circumstances may appear. Emotions may emerge.
In your meditative state, reassure your inner child by projecting love. Breathe in,
using the power of your breath to calm the emotional body. Keep breathing until you feel
calmer. Breathe in and out of your solar plexus. After you feel calmer, begin to breathe in
and out from your heart chakra. Breathe until you feel calmer. After a while, imagine the
breath coming down through the crown chakra, through the top of the head. Focus your
attention at the crown chakra and observe the breath coming in and come from that
center. See or feel light coming down from your Higher Self to you through your crown
chakra. Now, look at the hurt as if from outside your personality. Feel the light from
Higher Self pouring light into the wound. You may need to practice this over several
days, or even months. You will feel when you are ready for the next step. You will become
aware that the light fills the wound. Watch as the physical fabric, emotional fabric,
begins to fill with light. Keep flowing light each day filling the sore spot with light.
Observe each day as the wound fills with light and its colors, for those of you who can
see psychically, turn from angry red, to orange, to yellow, green, blue, purple and finally
to white. Feel the dent filling with light. You may observe strands of light, threads of
light, interweaving as the pit fills with woven strands of light. Keep working in meditation
until the dent completely fills with light.
Sit quietly and appreciate. Appreciate the work you performed on yourself and
appreciate whatever lesson the hurt brought to you. Feel gratitude, dear hearts. We hope
these words soothed your soul, dear hearts. We love you dearly. We are One.

—

I’m thinking of going to India for two weeks to become a oneness trainer so I can take some oneness business from Tharpy. Besides, I like the idea of helping people.

I hope oneness is just not another thing for Van Tharp Institute to sell, for nearly fifteen years he’s been saying he can tell people how to trade profitably and earn a fortune in the markets – without having done so for himself – and during most of that period he’s never stated in his books the importance of spirituality, or blessings, so his guidance was historically you don’t need that stuff. How about another example? In 1997 when a Forbes journalist went to do a story on trading he listed Tharp’s tips and spoke with the attendees – the journalist wasn’t impressed with his presentation of offering anything of significant value – it just seemed, in the journalist’s opinion, that Tharp was trying to cash in on the dot com, trade from home boot camp mentality that was prevalent at the time.

And the one investment that Tharp did state he was directly involved in from his newsletter from 2004 or 2005? Stamps. Antique postage stamps was where he was putting his money. That’s like saying, “Come to my seminar where I’ll talk to you about making a living trading stocks or earning a fortune trading the financial markets, but where I’m investing my money is in collector postage stamps.”

For the last few years a friend of mine has said he bought shares of Citigroup for less than $5 per share and that he intends to hold them for the inevitable rise, however, after the 1-for-10 reverse stock split he’s lost his ability to garner substantial profits. And that’s why he bought Citigroup penny stock in the first place – for the potential reward of thousands of dollars from a relatively small investment.

Over the last few years he kept trying to convince me to buy a few thousand shares, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Let’s see if the stock price falls back to the ten to twenty dollar range… I lot of people hate Citibank, and who can blame them? Why should I pay more for the same junk stock?

The low price of Citigroup stock made it attractive to trade – representing as much as 10 per cent of US volume. It was averaging 6.1 per cent of daily US volume in 2011, according to Rosenblatt Securities. Since 2009, Citigroup options were frequently 2 per cent of US monthly volume. Citigroup’s market cap is around $124 billion. But that’s high compared to Apple computer, Google, etc. which actually have some form of business and societal value, whereas, a corporate bank is a corporate bank – and frankly Citibank as a brand, or as a company would not have been missed in a consumer sense if it had been allowed to fail and become bankrupt. But consumers would surely miss Apple computer or Google. People may only be expected to become passionate about banking when it involves a public community bank that serves the public well.

US equity markets exhibited a significant decline in daily trading volumes following a reverse split for Citigroup, by far the most heavily traded company stock.

I think the reverse stock split is negative to the psychology of individual traders – when C was cheap they could buy it knowing it might only drop a point or two, but now the share price is high enough to fall quite a bit – and there’s less upside profit potential compared to the rise of a cheap brand name stock.

*** Update:
Since May 6th to June 17th the share price has moved from around $45 to $38.

comments @ stocktraderdude

All three US stock market indices are up nearly 10% on the year, with most of that gain occurring in April.

 

 

The US economic landscape is much worse now compared to 2004 and 2005 – and bear in mind that in 1994 and 1995 the DJIA was at 4000 to 5000, and in 1992 to 1993 the DJIA was 2000 to 3000, so how can anyone feel positive about natural upward market momentum?

 

–       Outstanding credit card balances are approximately 900 billion US dollars (How much physical US currency is there worldwide? $850 billion, as Time Magazine reported at the end of 2008)

–       Foreclosures

–       Joblessness

–       Poverty (43.6 million people are classified by the US government as below the poverty line – the highest number in 51 years of record keeping)

–       Uninsured & increasing health care costs (Over 40 million uninsured)

–       Inflation

 

 

Does this sound ideal for the US market indices to be at such high levels? Maybe, if we consider that the US stock markets do not reflect the economics of Main Street.

 

Average Jane Q. Public is never going to achieve wealth in the stock market, nor in real estate, or in anything else – the one thing that will make a difference for her existence is affordable or free health care. If she’s not healthy she can’t viably engage in the pursuit of happiness, nor take care of her family or community.

 

The average Jane Q. Public family doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to continue consumer spending – they’re still trying to pay off what they spent when times were good! And if the Q. Public family has a family member who is no longer employed, their focus is on the basics of food, other household staples, and getting around town (all of which cost them more!).

 

Yet we’ve still got folks marketing how to profit in the US stock markets and suggesting continued investment for your retirement security, and as a way to generate wealth. What a silly claim – even with the US stock markets registering gains for this year the value of the US dollar has declined to offset any potential rise in actual portfolio value. Why risk your money just to break-even?

 

 

 

 

Here’s an example from Tharp and his newsletter – which he promotes to get people to sign up for his expensive workshops. He claims to turn people into super traders and other nonsense. Is he a super trader? No. Does he even trade the markets? No. But he hangs out with people who trade. And he claims they have improved their trading performance from reading his literature. Oh, yeah, because trading books make people money – not!

 

But isn’t it possible that your “students” made money because the markets have gone up anyway, regardless of how fundamentally bad the economy is? Tharp forgets that in 2004 he was so focused on the collapse of the US stock markets that he was wrong about his secular bear market analysis being the same as a forthcoming severe market decline. And he didn’t personally achieve any of the profits to be gained from the fast declines from 2008 and 2009, nor did Tharpy have anything substantial to say to his newsletter readers during that period. So here’s what he is saying now:

 

General Comments

We’re in a secular bear market, which means a long term and dramatic reduction in equity valuations. Eventually, we can expect to see S&P 500 PE ratios in the single digits. Fundamentally, conditions certainly seem to support that trend even though the economy can do quite well in some secular bear markets. (Right, you found out after screaming from 2004 that we were due for a massive decline that the US markets did nothing but go up, up, and up, and register record gains in the DJIA to 15,000. That was exactly the opposite you said would happen! Remember in 2004, 2005, 2006 that’s all you could keep talking about – massive decline – massive decline – massive decline, based on your carefully crafted research – which you kept trying to push, and frankly, you make newsletters, not trading profits! You don’t directly trade or profit from any global stock market.)

 

 

He goes on to say:

The stock market is in roaring bull mode because of the Fed’s activities; however, those effects are not flowing into the economy. The economy is a disaster. The Fed’s money is just flowing into the stock market, probably largely through big banks investing the new money. Banks certainly are not lending it like the Fed intended. (The Federal Reserve doesn’t print anything. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing does the actual printing. The Federal Reserve just creates book entries as a way to become a creditor and signify they bought US government debt and thereby introduce money into the system. Does Tharpy ever discuss this? Not directly.)

 

 

 

He then states: Here is what is going on in my opinion:

1. The US economy is in a shambles. The debt is so big that the government cannot fix it. It is only a matter of time before it caves in. Expect the government to default on a lot of its contracts, especially social security. (I say, people need social security, there’s no viable way for their savings to significantly surpass inflation.)
2. The Federal Reserve is printing massive amounts of money to stimulate the economy, and usually that should work because the banks normally lend out three or more times as much money as they get from the Fed. But right now the rate of lending is at 0.74. The banks are not lending their money; they are putting it into the market…the big banks at least. (We went over this, the Fed creates book entries, they don’t actually print anything – I know Tharpy must know this, but he acts like a typical media reporter when he comments like that.)
3. US interest rates are very, very low right now because the government, due to its debt, cannot afford high interest rates (nor can the economy). Low interest rates, the US account deficit and our massive debt have crashed the dollar. Expect things to get even worse because one day the world will not accept the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. (Canada is looking well.)
4. While the market is in a strong bull period, the overall gain in the major indices this year is not as big as the fall in the dollar.
5. In this climate, long term investing does not work. You must be a trader, and you must have your psychology together in order to succeed. Trading is not easy; you need to educate yourself and exercise your discipline. (Oh, you mean like you do? Wait – you don’t actually trade any stocks, right? So, you don’t have firsthand experience in actually winning in the markets or making a living from trading. Selling high priced workshops about how to trade, yes, making money in the markets as a super trader or even a competent trader, no.)

 

 

Buy a stock trader dude hat – it will keep you warm, and yet when it’s too warm it will offer shade to keep you cool. And it’s a lot more practical than fussing inappropriately with the markets… but act now before the price goes back up to $750 US.

 

 

All three hats for $97. (Questions about your order? Contact us at ordering @ stocktraderdude)

 

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@stocktraderdude

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