Trend Following With Michael Covel

Today, Michael Covel interviews Mike Lofgren. Mike’s new book is titled, “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.” We are in a world where everyone thinks their vote matters and that the next President will fix all of America’s problems. Michael starts the podcast off reading an excerpt from Lofgren’s new book. The two dig into expectations that people had for George W. Bush. As he failed, the people then voted in Barack Obama. Obama failed to meet people’s expectations as well. Lofgren explains what he describes as a “deep state” phenomenon. Next, Covel and Lofgren dig into: “Does our vote really matter?” Lofgren says that whoever is elected President matters on the margin. The general vector of who gets what, what the general distribution of income is, and what our general foreign policy is, is going to be pretty much the same no matter who is elected. However, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are so far out of the box that they may change those norms because of ho

Michael Covel interviews Ben Hunt. Ben is the Chief Risk Officer at Salient Partners and the author of “Epsilon Theory.” This is his second time on Trend Following Radio. He has an interesting way of looking at capital markets–through the lens of game theory. Michael and Ben start the podcast off talking about buy and hold and why the strategy does so poorly. Ben moves on to break apart monetary policy and domestic politics and how they are intimately intertwined. When you have a world of massive debt, like we do today, then deleveraging naturally should take place. Instead, in today’s world you have the ownership of that debt shifted from private entities taking responsibility of it, to the government. Central bank policies are always a direct reflection of the politics that are going on in the big four economies that drive the world; U.S., China, Europe, and Japan. The domestic political interactions going on in those countries are what you see in the world’s economics. This leads to cooperation during ec

Michael Covel talks political correctness. Americans take regular issues, and blow them up to the extreme. We see it 24/7. In addition, there is massive abundance, arguably a distraction to the freedom to make choices. Is the freedom to make your own choices even real? Michael reads excerpts from an article by Josh Brown titled, “Abundance.” He makes the case that abundance is now the enemy, which sets our economy apart from every other culture in history. For example, so much entertainment is free these days; movies, video games, apps, dating websites, music, the list goes on. People are taking paid versions of products and producing cheap and free versions. Josh points out that a year ago he was writing about scarcity, now its abundance. We use to have pop culture or a #1 hit TV show or hit band. Now there are 50 different sub cultures and genres. But abundance is killing us. Josh notes that it would be best if there was a major flush of the system. Capital needs to be exchanged and shifted. The imbalance

Michael Covel interviews Parag Khanna. Parag is an international relations expert, a CNN Global Contributor and Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore. He is also the Managing Partner of Hybrid Reality, a geostrategic advisory firm, and Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum. Parag’s new book, “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization” recently came across Michael’s desk. The concept of connectivity does not just relate to mobile phones and Skype. There is a very physical and tangible evolution of connectivity that can be boiled down into three categories; transportation, energies and communications. Michael and Parag start the podcast off touching on what connectivity is and then dive into the relationship between cities and states. Parag says that there is not one single successful state that is not built upon the stability of their successful cities. We have more mega and viable cities than states in the world. Cities are the drivers of growth. More mayors are sitting he

Michael Covel starts off reading an email from a listener asking, “Do all trend followers use spreadsheets alone to trade? Or do they also use charts for visualization? I am having a hard time trading using a spreadsheet alone and I tend to need to see a chart. It provides the visualization I need.” Michael responds saying “What does the visualization do? Are your trading decisions based on the price or visualization of a chart?” You don’t need charts or multiple monitors streaming at a time. That is not how the best traders trade.For the remainder of the episode Michael leads with a presentation from Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. Gregg talks about organization, discipline, player relationships (between players and the coach and between players and players), and the importance of being comfortable enough in your own skin to take advice from others, among many other subjects. You can’t begin to execute a trading rule until you have sound philosophical grounding. It st

Michael Covel speaks with Simon Black. Simon is an investor, entrepreneur and the founder of Sovereign Man. He has a travel perspective that has given him unique insights on freedom, making money, keeping as much of it as possible (and protecting it from the government whatever government that may be).Michael starts off the podcast asking Simon, “I want to know your story. How did you go down this path? How did you start?” Simon’s journey started in the military. He went to West Point. Upon graduation he was commissioned as an Army intelligence officer and stationed in the Middle East around the time Bush was accusing Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. As the U.S. was gearing up for war, it became abundantly clear that it was all a lie, and Simon realized that if the president would be willing to go to war over something that was so false, then what else would the government be willing to do?Simon breaks down the idea of currency. He says that everyone should have physical cash money. There

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel reads Sam Hinkie’s resignation letter, former general manager of the Philadelphia 76er’s basketball team. His management strategy was stats driven. Sam talks about how critical it is to focus on process and not be fixated on the outcome. Process you can plan out and control, you can’t always control the outcome. The point Michael aims to make by reading the letter is not to show whether Sam was a good or bad GM. His wisdom is something we should all not just consider, but wisdom we should learn from. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Thinking about thinking The importance of intellectual humility The necessity of innovation The longest view in the room A contrarian mindset A tolerance of uncertainty Be long science A healthy respect for tradition A reverence for disruption

Michael Covel interviews Jesse Lawler. Jesse is the host of Smart Drug Smarts, a podcast that is centered around supplements people can take to augment brain function. He has an out of the box perspective on health, fitness and enhancing cognitive performance.Michael and Jesse start the conversation off with the question, “What is healthy?” Some athletes that can perform amazing feats are actually destroying their bodies to get there, so are they really healthy? Mind and body can be at total odds when it comes to health. Jesse breaks open the idea of cognitive performance and where a good starting point is when trying to increase your performance. He says your brain is meant to do everything. It is a universal machine that does things that we are, and are not aware of. To improve performance of the brain, there are a variety of things one can do. He breaks it down into four categories: Mood, focus, creativity, and anxiety. Jesse goes in depth on different supplements you can take to improve your focus (in par

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel talks about personal responsibility. Michael brings in basketball references from the Boston Celtics and their head coach Brad Stevens. He goes into the accomplishments of Stevens as a coach and as a quant. Stevens coaching is all about numbers and probabilities.Michael plays a clip from Chris Mannix of the Vertical Podcast with Brad Stevens. Stevens explains how he uses statistical analysis in his coaching and how the “best of the best” like to be coached. Most don’t care about a numbers to numbers speech but everybody wants to know how they can best play and attack situations. Michael circles the conversation back to trading markets and trading on the numbers. Mannix then asks Stevens if coaching is just coaching being on an NBA sideline as opposed to other sidelines? He says that the longer he has been a coach the more he has been able to take emotion out of the game and it has become a job. By the time a game nears the end he isn’t even thinking of the game, he

Michael Covel, author of Trend Following, The Complete TurtleTrader, The Little Book of Trading, and Trend Commandments, introduces his podcast--Trend Following with Michael Covel. This is the first episode, the starting introduction, of the podcast. Want to get started in your trend following understanding?

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel discusses scams and what can be learned from them. Any scam that takes place today, we have seen before. In the early 2000’s Enron was at the height of its game. Turns out they had a fake trading floor set up just to convince Wall Street they were real. At Enron’s peak, their company was trading at $90 a share. When it crashed, their stock traded around $0.50 a share. And that story brings us up to current day with the latest Enron.Michael continues to read more feedback, but this time from a listener of his podcast seguing him into the current blowup of the pharmaceutical company, Valeant. Valeant’s share prices went from $250 to $30 in short order. Even as the stock was crashing people were buying the hype and false fundamental information. Michael reads from sources such as Jim Cramer, Morgan Stanley, and Valeant themselves. He then connects articles from Enron’s press releases back in 2001 before their crash and press releases from Valeant in 2016. Quotes from

Michael Covel interviews Anders Ericsson. His new book is “Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.” Starting around high school, Anders became interested in how he could best improve himself. When he got to college he studied how people could achieve above average performance. He did a study showing the number of digits average people could repeat back correctly. The average number was about 5-7 digits. After an hour of practice they were able to repeat about 20 digits correctly. With even more training one student was able to get 70 digits in a row. This showed Anders that the mind can improve with the right kind of practice. Performance is trainable and purposeful practice is key. One major component of successful practice is immediate feedback on whether you are accurate or not. Michael moves onto a study Anders did on taxi drivers in London. They have to go through extensive training to drive the streets of London. They are average people, but train for many years to be able to pass this taxi dr

Michael Covel interviews Tom Bilyeu. Tom is the co-founder and president of Quest Nutrition. He is the consummate entrepreneur who went from running a successful tech company to starting all over and developing Quest Nutrition. He has created his own narrative for entrepreneurial greatness.Tom started out as what he would describe as a “good employee,” with never questioning the system. He didn’t take high school seriously but when he started college he buckled down. He heard that the brain doesn’t stop developing until the age of 25 and that helped shape a large part of his 20’s. Watching ‘The Matrix” at age 22, he realize that he wanted to be in control of his own life. Around age 26 he met his business partners with whom he would start his first company.In 2012 his tech company was named the 42nd fastest growing tech company in North America. Soon after that, he had a talk with his partners letting them know he wasn’t happy, wasn’t having fun anymore, and wanted out. His partners felt the same way, and the

Michael Covel interviews Steven Pinker. Steven is a Canadian-born American cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He covers phenomena that have traditionally not been looked at scientifically such as: visual perception, war and peace, and differences in writing styles. He has authored numerous books with his most recent being, “The Sense of Style.”Steven knew he was an atheist from the age of 13. He never had a big revelation because God was never a real part of his consciousness. However, his religious awareness as a young man helped to guide his career into using science, and science only in his research. He puts science as the decider of “what is.”Michael asks, “How has human behavior been shaped by evolution.” Steven based his book, “The Blank Slate” around the idea that humans aren’t born wi

Michael Covel brings a different perspective to countries and cultures. He starts off reading an article by Simon Black, “Việt Nam will become one of the top expat destinations in the world.” Due to China’s growth in the last 10 years they can’t compete making cheap goods like they have in the past. That business is moving to Việt Nam. The lifestyle that you can achieve in Việt Nam for a moderate amount of money is amazing. They have high quality at an inexpensive price. They are making it easier for locals to earn more money and thrive. Things began changing in the late 1980’s when the communist government opened up and encouraged private business.Michael moves on to talk about his recent trip to Myanmar (formerly Burma). It was colonized by the British, but in 1948 Myanmar declared their independence. Their borders were closed off for about 50 years after that. Around 2011 they opened the borders to foreigners again, and in 2015 they held their first elections. There are 50 million people currently living i

Michael Covel interviews Catherine Stott. Catherine is author of, “Hypnotrading: A practical guide to using hypnosis and NLP to improve your trading performance: Self-hypnosis and psychotherapeutic techniques for traders.” Catherine believes that hypnotherapy and neuro-lingustic programing can help traders defeat inner challenges and become more successful. She got started working with traders after helping a friend, who happened to be a trader. He helped her understand the world of trading a bit more throughout their sessions and this ignited her interest deeper. She has been helping traders for years but didn’t start HypnoTrading until 2014.Catherine was working as a psychologist when a friend referred her to see a hypnotherapist. She started to see the hypnotherapist for stress relief in her work and personal life. She was intrigued by the therapy so much that she switched career paths and sought training as a hypnotherapist. Hypnosis is essentially being in a deeply relaxed state of mind. It is an open st

Michael Covel talks about shaking up the establishment, referring to Trump and the presidential race. He sees hope that the political establishment could take a hit and just maybe a dent in the political health of America could happen. He isn’t saying that he would get great legislation through, or solve world peace, but he might shake up the political arena and detour the agendas of some special interest groups.Next, Michael leads into discussion of the lottery, banks, and government. The lottery has become one of the biggest cons by government directed at the lower to middle class. They have convinced people that playing the lottery is a form of investing for their retirement. Michael plays a clip from the Virginia state lottery. They found a Jim Cramer look alike to get people to think of investing as they talk about playing the lottery and saving for the future.Michael moves into reading an article by Barry Ritholtz that was written in January of 2016 when the Powerball prize was around 1.5 billion dollar

Michael Covel interviews Bill Bonner. Bill is author of “Hormegeddon: How Too Much Of A Good Thing Leads To Disaster.” He has made a career out of skepticism. That skepticism started right out of college as he helped a friend start a grassroots organization, The National Tax Payers Union. There, he was able to get an inside look at government. It was during his lobbying for this grassroots organization that he saw the true motivations of politicians.Bill and Michael start the conversation off talking about having too much of something, good or bad. Everything in the world, when you get too much of it, it is bad. Bill uses Germany as an example: When Hitler first got into power, his message to the people was more security. As Hitler kept gaining more power, the government took more control and things began to fall apart rapidly from there.Next they talk about negative interest rates. There is a social contract being broken by the use of negative interest rates. Bill says the whole idea of work leading to outpu

Michael Covel starts the discussion off with Mark Zuckerberg and the virtual reality realm we are entering. There is now an infamous picture of Mark Zuckerberg walking down an aisle with a huge audience behind him hooked up to helmets. All audience members are in a virtual reality. Michael bridges the gap between speculative follies of the past, with the virtual reality bubble we are about to embark on.David Harding and James Holmes wrote a book titled, “The Pit and the Pendulum: A Menagerie of Speculative Follies.” Michael reads an excerpt from the book, giving a historical narrative about how people have behaved over the centuries. People always get excited about something new, and that “something new” historically always seems to crater and crash. The chapter Michael reads from is titled “Basking in an Indian Summer: The Bombay Share Mania of 1865.” The excerpt relates to cotton exports during the American Civil War. Bombay saw massive profits in cotton and silver due to cotton exports being halted in Amer

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Jim Rogers. Jim is a famed American investor based in Singapore. He was co-founder of the Quantum Fund, and has authored numerous books. Today’s conversation is geared toward the central banking system and the direction Michael and Jim think the world’s economy is headed.Michael starts the podcast off talking about negative interest rates and if that is a possibility in the U.S. Jim brings up a study published in 2007 that said, “We have the Federal Reserve, we have 1,000 of the most brilliant economists in the world how can we be wrong? How can people say that we are wrong?” Jim says that for the last 30 years the Fed has done just that. They have gotten just about everything wrong. Janet Yellen has been getting everything wrong since before she was even head of the Fed. She blames her blunders on the market being wrong or the public being wrong. According to Jim, every head of the Fed has been an academic and political hack.Michael posits, “Everyone sh