Trend Following With Michael Covel

Welcome to Thunderdome with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Laura Huang, a preeminent Harvard Business School professor, shows that success is about gaining an edge: that elusive quality that gives you an upper hand and attracts attention and support. Some people seem to naturally have it. Now, Huang teaches the rest of us how to create our own from the challenges and biases we think hold us back, and turning them to work in our favor. How do you find a competitive edge when the obstacles feel insurmountable? How do you get people to take you seriously when they’re predisposed not to, and perhaps have already written you off? Laura Huang has come up against that problem many times–and so has anyone who’s ever felt out of place or underestimated. Many of us sit back quietly, hoping that our hard work and effort will speak for itself. Or we try to force ourselves into the mold of who we think is “successful,” stifling the creativity and charm that makes us unique and memorable. Huang offers a different approach. She argues that success is rarely just about the quality o

When Mass Panic Rolls Out You Need A Plan with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

We are at the dawn of the Autonomous Revolution, a turning point in human history as decisive as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. More and more, AI-based machines are replacing human beings, and online environments are gathering our data and using it to manipulate us. This loss of human autonomy amounts to nothing less than a societal phase change, a fundamental paradigm shift. The same institutions will remain–schools, banks, churches, and corporations–but they will radically change form, obey new rules, and use new tools. William H. Davidow and Michael S. Malone go deeply into the enormous implications of these developments. They show why increases in productivity no longer translate into increases in the GDP and how zero cost, one-to-many communications have been turned into tools for cybercrime and propaganda. Many of the book’s recommendations–such as using taxes to control irresponsible internet behavior and enabling people to put their data into what are essentially virtual personal informa

Howard Marks Inspiration with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Bain & Company partner Rob Markey argues most companies are too focused on earnings at the expense of customers. Instead they should measure and report “customer value” to investors, like Costco, Amex and Humana do, with consistent metrics that allow investors and other stakeholders to judge a company’s true value compared to competitors. Too often, earnings pressure results in cost-cutting measures that hurt customers. But if you want to compete in today’s loyalty economy, customer value should be reported in your next quarterly and annual earnings or IPO reports, and it should become the focus of the money and attention you invest in your company. The article contains tips and original research with numerical data on how much faster loyalty leading companies grow revenues and shareholder returns than competitors. Bio: Rob Markey is a partner and director at Bain & Company and the founder of the firm’s Global Customer Strategy and Marketing practice. He is a coauthor of The Ultimate Question 2.0 and

Michael Covel Goes on the Trend Following Tour on Trend Following Radio.

Tom Golisano understands the fears, risks, and challenges small-business owners face every day—he’s lived it. He has launched and grown his own highly successful businesses and mentored dozens of entrepreneurs, helping them build their own successful companies. Built, Not Born shows readers: • How going against the grain can be a great strategy for finding business opportunities and why it pays to question conventional wisdom. • Why the pregnant pause can be an effective weapon in negotiations and when interviewing potential employees. • Why a prenuptial or even a postnuptial agreement is critical to any business owner. • What potential buyers and funding sources look for, and the best way to present a business plan. • And finally, the key growth and leadership strategies that have helped Paychex sustain its incredible level of growth and profitability. Tom Golisano—entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic leader, and former owner of the Buffalo Sabres NHL team—is the founder and chairman of the Board of Paychex,

Dan Ferris is the editor of Extreme Value, a monthly investment advisory that focuses on some of the safest and yet most profitable stocks in the market: great businesses trading at steep discounts. And while Dan and Michael employ different investing strategies, their conversation today reveals much in common. Dan joined Stansberry Research in 2000. He became editor of Extreme Value in 2002. His strategy of finding safe, cheap, and profitable stocks has earned him a loyal following – as well as one of the most impressive track records in the industry. Dan was among the few analysts to accurately describe the breadth and depth of the coming 2008 financial crisis. And he told investors to get out of small-cap mining stocks in 2011, before they went into a brutal, multi-year bear market. As a result of his work in Extreme Value, Dan has appeared on Money with Melissa Francis and The Willis Report on Fox Business News, as well as The Street with Paul Bagnell on Business News Network. He has also been featured in

The hidden key to successful transformation in any organization lies between human intuition and data-driven insights. Rishad Tobaccowala draws on research and interviews, as well as over three decades of experience as a business and thought leader, to describe how digilog companies—ones where digital tools and analog people are integrated expertly—develop a hybrid consciousness and learn to be proactive when they see warning signs that human traits are being subordinated to technology and data only decisions. Restoring the Soul of Business provides practical tools and techniques that every organization can and should implement, and challenges us to move forward with the kind of balance that catalyzes transformation and produces one great success after another: Understand how to unleash the significant benefit that can by realized by combining emotion and data, human and machine, analog and digital. Spot the warning signs of data-blinded companies: cold cultures with little human interaction, poor innovation

Take Shots with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Author Nir Eyal joins Michael for his second appearance on the show. And today it’s all about distraction. For example. You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. Later, as you’re about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold. What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused? What if you had the power to become “indistractable?” Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more. Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals: • Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture—and how to fix it. • Wh

Scott Adams and Wise Advice About Not Staying in Your Lane.

A New 2020 Book with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

“AI is the ‘runtime’ that is going to shape all of what we do.” –Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, allow massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning–to drive ever more accurate, complex, and sophisticated predictions. When traditional operating constraints are removed, strategy becomes a whole new game, one whose rules and likely outcomes this book will make clear. Iansiti and Lakhani: • Present a framework for rethinking business and operating models. • Explain how “collisions” between AI-driven/digital and traditional/analog firms are reshaping competition, altering the structure

“In the age of fake news, understanding who we trust and why is essential in explaining everything from leadership to power to our daily relationships.” We live in a world where proven facts and verifiable data are freely and widely available. Why, then, are self-confident ignoramuses so often believed over thoughtful experts? And why do seemingly irrelevant details such as a person’s appearance or financial status influence whether or not we trust what they are saying, regardless of their wisdom or foolishness? Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks compellingly explain how in our uncertain and ambiguous world, the messenger is increasingly the message. We frequently fail, they argue, to separate the idea being communicated from the person conveying it, explaining why the status or connectedness of the messenger has become more important than the message itself. Messengers influence business, politics, local communities, and our broader society. And Martin and Marks reveal the forces behind the most infuriating phe

The Daily Stoic Meets The Trend Attitude with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Award-winning Carleton University neuroscientist Kim Hellemans and cognitive scientist Jim Davies created an audio show called “Minding the Brain.” Michael, Kim and Jim jump into all that is the mind! Jim Davies is an award-winning American/Canadian cognitive scientist, playwright, artist, and author. He is a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the School of Computer Science at Carleton University, where he is the director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory. His research focuses on visual reasoning, analogy, and imagination. Kim Hellemans is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Neuroscience at Carleton University, where her research focused on understanding the biological basis of drug addiction.

Roll into 2020 with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur based in Pescadero, California. Blank is recognized for developing the customer development method that launched the lean startup movement, a methodology which recognized that startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but require their own set of processes and tools to be successful. His Lean Launchpad class (taught as the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps) has become the standard for commercialization for all federal research. Blank writes and teaches about customer development and the lean startup method. He is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford; lectures at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and is a senior fellow at Columbia University. He has written four books: The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, The Startup Owner’s Manual and Holding a Cat by the Tail. And I am lucky to have Steve on today!