Trend Following With Michael Covel

Michael explores meeting the achievers, great coaching and brings back two trend following legends from the archives–a must listen. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Meeting the achievers–how? Coaching Trend Following Legends Ed Seykota and Martin Bergin

Robert Carver got his start in finance working at trend following firm AHL in 2001 during his final year of college. He was introduced to quantitative trading while at AHL and for the first time began thinking of finance in a systematic way. He later went back to AHL, working there from 2006-2013. His newest book is “Smart Portfolios: A Practical guide to building and maintaining intelligent investment portfolios.” It took a lot of research and digging for Robert to decipher which financial tools available to traders were appropriate for him. He knew he was not the only trader with this problem so he decided to write a book laying out what he had found through his research. Robert gives actionable tips and guidelines for others who may need help finding what trading instruments are right for them. Robert also wanted “Smart Portfolios” to be a book for the average investor. He wrote it in a way that is not over complicated. Any trader, new or professional, can pick it up and find it useful. Robert bases portfo

Michael throws Jeff Bezos, Amazon and trend following into a giant melting pot. Jeff Bezos is a trend following trader – along with venture capitalists, Hollywood, the MIT black jack team, Warren Buffett (to some degree, yes), and many more. Michael notes an excerpt from a document written in 1983, gleaning wisdom from Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt. Not relevant today? Think again. Richard Dennis makes it clear in the document that you never know where the next home run is coming from – missing a big payout is just as bad as taking a loss. Are you guilty of forgetting about big opportunity when trading? Do you focus too much on your downside? Most unfortunately get fixated on the downside and ignore the positive unknown. Michael also notes an article written by Li Jiang titled, “What I Learned From Reading Every Amazon Shareholders Letter.” Li lists key lessons he has pulled from shareholder letters: type I and type II decisions, end each day of business like it is the first day, always operate like a hung

Mark Kritzman is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Windham Capital Management and serves as a senior partner of State Street Associates. Mark has written six books, his latest titled “A Practitioners Guide to Asset Allocation”. Mark began his career on Wall Street in 1974 and was immediately drawn toward systematic trading. At a time when there were not many quantitative traders, he was affectionately titled a “token quant” within his company. Over the years Mark has been an advisor to many funds. While working with various companies it became clear fund managers were mixing how they invest with how they would choose asset classes. He decided to break down the most basic and logical ways of organizing the investment process. What are some components of an asset class: stable composition, be investable, internally homogeneous, externally heterogeneous, raise the utility of a portfolio, and you should be able to access it in a cos

Today’s mega combo episode is Chris Voss, Robert Cialdini, Philip Tetlock, Spyros Makridakis, and Tim Ferriss. Chris Voss is the author of, Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. Chris is a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI. He has had an amazing career full of great experience and insights. Chris first entered the FBI in 1983 and has been involved with over 150 kidnapping cases. Robert Cialdini is best known for writing Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion published back in 1984. Robert is the “go to man” for understanding effective persuasion. Reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity are six key principles of influence he teaches. His new book, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, introduces a seventh key principle of influence. Philip Tetlock is a Canadian American political science writer currently at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is right at the intersection

Frank Ostaseski has dedicated his life to helping others. He is co-founder of the Zen Hospice Project and founder of the Metta Institute. Frank is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer and expert on the end-of-life experience. His work spans from helping the homeless to the wealthy to the young and to the elderly have an easier transition to the other side. Frank loves what he does because of how “real” the experience of death is. His new book is The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. How did Frank begin helping people with the experience of death? It was not a linear path. Frank had experiences with death early on in his life with the passing of his parents. He later was introduced to the Buddhist practice with the central tenet of Buddhism being the study of constant change. When his son was born he felt it was important to “birth his soul”. He went to a program where everyone was grieving and learning about the loss of a soul. Frank on the other hand, wanted to l

Mike Salguero is a serial entrepreneur. His newest venture is Butcher Box – delivering meat from the farm straight to your door. He got his start in the business space selling t-shirts in high school and continued making t-shirts throughout college. He credits his t-shirt businesses to teaching him how to market and grow a brand from the ground up. Mike’s first large scale business was a company that helped carpenters market and sell their custom furniture. The company was called CustomMade. Mike and his business partner bought the URL for $150,000, revamped the website, raised $30 million of venture capital and at it’s peak employed 60 people. By the time Mike left the company they were down to 6 employees. His partner stayed with it and has turned the company around, but most investors lost everything. He learned a lot from CustomMade – the paramount lesson being how to market a product. Butcher Box was started a few years after stepping away from CustomMade. Mike and his wife wanted to eat cleaner and heal

Ryan Moran is founder of Capitalism.com and Freedom Fast Lane. He started with nothing and turned himself into a successful entrepreneur. Ryan helps other self-starting high achievers build their business, reinvest their profits, find freedom in their work and move away from the 9-5 mindset. Ryan entered college thinking his life would go down a much different path. He grew up in a religious family and went to college to become a minister. Everything changed for him while sitting in an economics class listening to the morals behind an economic system. His professor explained money as an exchange of value. This was a new concept to Ryan. Looking at money as an exchange of value made him realize making money was a positive rather than something to feel guilty about. It was a source of freedom rather than a source of greed or evil. Ryan quickly saw capitalism and entrepreneurism as the only system where he could define the world he wanted to live in, rather than having it defined for him. As the millennial gener

Roger Ver, also known as “Bitcoin Jesus”, started his first company in Silicon Valley while still in college and made his first million before 25. Roger is a libertarian who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of getting individuals to interact outside the state system. He has been a relentless advocate for blockchain currency, pouring all his capital and energy into the startup. Also, Roger is currently working out the details of starting a non-government run country. Roger began turning away from government while in grade school. He was learning about the military draft in school and the idea of forcing individuals into fighting seemed backwards to him. He had read a book by libertarian Murray N. Rothbard who related the draft to kidnapping and slavery. Roger now defines government as “A small group of people that claim the right to use violence against peaceful people.” There shouldn’t be an exception for government. Other humans do not have the right to take our money or order others to kill people. Why

Michael has audio books for Trend Following (fourth and fifth editions), The Complete TurtleTrader and Trend Commandments. He starts the podcast today playing the afterword to the 5th edition of Trend Following written by Larry Hite. He follows this reading with Stig Ostgaard’s white paper titled “The Origins of Trend Following” first published in Trend Commandments. Michael finishes up the podcast playing a full chapter on psychology from his newest edition of Trend Following. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Psychology of trading Irrationality of people Behavioral economics The meaning of money NLP Evolution of trend following How Larry Hite began trading Risk management

Today’s combo episode consists of four classic episodes aggregated into one big modern podcast. Jack Schwager, Peter Brandt, Larry Williams and Toby Crabel are four pro traders who hopefully give every listener an aha moment. Jack Schwager is author of the Market Wizards series and just completed his second edition of A Complete Guide to the Futures Markets: Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis, Trading, Spreads, and Options. Peter Brandt is author of Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader: Lessons from 21 Weeks of Real Trading, and a trader who has been in the commodity trading space since 1976. He has traded his own proprietary account from the late 1970’s until today, and is currently entering the hedge fund world by running a multi-CTA fund-of-funds. Larry Williams is the author of eleven books, most on stocks and commodity trading. He is also a stock and commodity trader, and politician. He has been in the trading game for over four decades and his name is well known in all trading circles. Toby Cr

Moritz Czubatinski specializes in helping traders get going. He has been traveling, trading and running a business for about 8 years. Tradeciety, his first business, was formed to help traders get started in the markets. Next, Moritz started a trading journal software company called Edgewonk. Every trader needs a journal, and when Moritz started out trading, there were no practical journals available. Moritz started off as a professional poker player but wanted a more legitimate way of making money. He started his trading career with zero education in finance and now trades off 8 to 10 charts for 6 to 8 hours a day. He was use to playing 24 tables of poker at a time (online) so Moritz is use to the constant action. He saw trading as a perfect career shift. Another positive about making the jump to trading from poker? The playing field is constant. In poker, as you get better, the players you play against get better. In trading, the great traders are forever competing against newbies. What is Moritz favorite m

Rob Arnott is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and writer. He serves as Chairman and CEO of Research Affiliates LLC. advising on over $160 billion dollars in institutional investment assets. Rob is one of the worlds preeminent voices on investment strategy. What was Rob like as a young man? At age 16 he was extremely mathematically inclined with an avid interest in both the stock market and astronomy. He wasn’t sure which path he wanted, but he knew his mathematical skills were good enough for a top tier job in finance, but not in astronomy. So he took his math skills and entered the world of finance. Rob has been with quantitative investing since it’s inception in the 70’s. With the rise in computer capabilities, quant traders were able to start to make a name for themselves in the trading community. What is one of the biggest failings of the quant community? Traders have fallen into a trap of making systems so complex that the average investor can no longer understand them. He is a big fan of keeping thin

Jerry Parker was one of the original TurtleTraders trained by Richard Dennis. He has had unbelievable success over his four decade career. Jerry has a straightforward way of breaking down how trend following works. Trend following has typical highs and lows. During the lows, there will always be people pronouncing it dead. Trend following systems are built to protect capital by using diversification and built in stop-losses to counter down periods. Said another way, there is “crash protection” built into a robust trend following strategy. On the flip side, trend following systems are built to exploit the market when it is trending up. How easy is it to get into different markets with a trend following strategy? The great thing about systematic trading is you become an instant expert in any market. As long as you have the data, you can jump right in and trade. When you are looking at price alone, you come to find that stocks are all the same – Tesla and Coffee are traded identically. What is the most important

Having the right fundamental information will never guarantee success. Ray Dalio, one of the biggest traders on Wall Street says he trades off of fully automated fundamentals. If this is true what fundamentals does he choose to automate? In the same head space a reader forwarded Michael a tweet recently. It was a tweet from an executive associated with a big USA trading firm. This executive was asked by a business student, “What does a typical week look like for you?” His list went like this [Michael digs in]… How much time is being wasted? If consuming that information isn’t needed then what do you use to trade? One piece of information – price. You take the price and look at the trend. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Forming rules that you can stick to when the big trends come is key to anyone’s trading success. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Data mining Managing risk based on fundamental information Weekly routines Cocktail party banter Desert island trading Fundamental trading Thinkin

Scott Galloway is a professor at New York University Stern School of Business teaching brand strategy and digital marketing. He has started nine firms and his weekly YouTube series has generated millions of views. Scott is also author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.” Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are arguably the most influential entities in the world. These companies have deconstructed who humans are as a species and reassembled who humans are, in the form of for-profit companies. They have scaled up so fast and become so successful by understanding humans most common questions and producing answers instantly. Scott breaks down the specific reasons each of these companies have individually thrived: Google = God, Facebook = Love, Amazon = Consumption, and Apple = Sex. Mediocre and cheap products have been pushed in years past. However, people have new tools allowing them to practice due diligence and find what product is best for them personally. A better product is th

Larry David is one guy who is totally OK with the unexpected. He wrote and starred in the hit show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. He wanted total control of writing the show and didn’t want HBO looking over his shoulder. However, the show has no script. The actors are comfortable going into the unknown and winging it. So much of our modern world is pre-packaged and scripted down to the last syllable. Larry David knows that life is all about the surprise, and people value that surprise factor. What do these examples have in common with the stock market? Markets are unpredictable. Yes, it is necessary to have a game plan but with constant unexpected changes, you need to know what to do when things deviate from the plan. Chaos exists, there is no getting around it. To be successful in the game you must look past the chaos and know how to profit from it. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Luck in life What happens when plans deviate Chaos is not a pit The realm

Jeffrey Tucker is an American economics writer of the Austrian School, an advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin, and has authored seven books. Jeffrey’s new book, coming out September 2017, is titled “Right Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty.” Michael and Jeffrey start the conversation talking information. Regimes come and go, but information we share with one another cuts through governments. Interactions with others and the tools we use to spread information are what shapes history, rather than governments trying to put their spin on it. Government officials are not visionaries, they do not define the world, they do not create history. They spend their term in office gearing up to get elected for their next term in office. The more responsibility taken out of government’s hands the better. This leads us to Bitcoin… Why is Bitcoin so important? Bitcoin represents freedom. It’s an international currency, trades the same globally and has increased in value over time. Jeffery has been studying

Recently after running sprints, Michael decided to walk home a different way. He ended up walking next to a woman with an artificial foot. She was about 4’9″, 75lbs, missing a foot but looked as if she was still kicking ass. From Michael’s perspective, she had no excuses. She was not sitting at home, complaining. Too many these days complain about their weight, gender, political views, political correctness, etc. — and use anything they can as an excuse for why life is unfair. How do you break free from that mentality? What is the process? What system should be put in place? Creating a routine is a great place to start and has many self-help advantages. Having a routine can help center a person and allow them to measure and see personal achievement. News prevents us from living authentically. It is not real. It is something thrown at us on a daily basis with an agenda by those creating it. The same can be said for politics. A true experience is you walking down the street and noticing what is going on — takin

Rayner Teo is a 29-year old self-made, independent, ex-prop trader from Singapore. He also is the most followed trader in Singapore. Where does Rayner stand, in numbers, with social media followers? He has about 22,000 followers on YouTube and his Facebook community consists of about 15,000. Most of his followers love what he does, however, with every public figure there are always haters. Rayner gives his perspective on his social media reach and how to deal with trolls. Rayner entered the military (mandatory) at age 19. 97% of men entering the military end up in the same training camp, however Rayner was placed in an elite camp of men who are the first to go into combat — due to a glitch on his part in his application. Even though life was hard during his time in the military, it did award him his first “aha” moment — he realized his mind was much stronger than his body. He was able to take his body far past limitations that his mind had set. The military also promoted a mind frame of excellence, and that h