Trend Following With Michael Covel

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel starts off with a short clip from Star Wars. Michael notes that Yoda and the force have unexpected connections with trend following. He then recounts a story that happened to him a few weeks ago where he feels “the force” was involved. While he was waiting to take a red eye to Tokyo with his parents a man asked if he could share the power outlet he was using. That man happened to be one of the world’s most famous computing pioneers. Michael agreed to share the outlet if he could take a selfie with him. It was a weird serendipitous moment that Michael attached “the force.” Michael goes on to read from an article titled, “Meet David Harding: The Man Behind Models that Beat the Market,” published in The Australian Financial Review. The article highlights Harding’s accomplishments and views on trading. Harding stresses in the article that the only reason systematic trading has gotten big over the years is because it works. Harding’s company, Winton Capital

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael interviews Dave Huss. Dave discusses his transition from marketing consultant to entrepreneur. Formerly Dave did consulting work for paid advertising and now has transitioned into t-shirt design and sales (Michael notes that famed trader Salem Abraham had considered the t-shirt business before trading). He has been able to grow his business quickly due to a website called www.teespring.com. This website allows him to order shirts on-demand without any out of pocket expenses.Dave comes at t-shirt sales in a trend following manor. One out of every ten shirts that he puts out will be a big winner. He makes it clear that it is very important he has a system. He limits his cost to $20 per shirt for advertising. If he doesn’t get a positive response from his $20 advertising push then he stops. He lets the market decide which t-shirt designs are worth pursuing. He has put out 500+ designs just this year. Six out of ten times he sells zero shirts. Three out of ten of those shirt

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel features Larry Hite. Larry is unquestionably one of the founding fathers of systematic trend following. In 1981 he founded Mint Investments and by 1990 it was one of the largest trend following funds in the world. At the same time he formed partnership at Man group, which became wildly successful as well. In 2000 he decided to go another direction, focusing on proprietary trading and research, founding Hite Capital Management. Currently, Larry is partnered at ISAM with his long time colleague Stanley Fink.Throughout today’s podcast Michael pulls quotes and excerpts straight from Larry’s chapter in “The Little Book of Trading.” Quotes range from probability advice to compound interest and one or all of them are certain to spark certain “Ah-ha” moments. Michael starts with Larry giving advice on the notion of being wrong. Larry stresses that being wrong is ok. He was wrong often and always built the possibility of being wrong into his models. He would as

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Didier Sornette. He is Professor on the Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. He is also a professor of the Swiss Finance Institute, associated with both the department of Physics and the department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich. He has worked on the King effect, a theory used to predict economic bubbles. Didier also set up the Financial Crisis Observatory in October of 2008. He brings an interesting perspective to financial crisis’s, and bubbles. Didier first realized his fascination with financial bubbles back in 1989. He received a grant to try and solve the equation of prediction. Didier goes on to discuss the different theories that stemmed from his research. A few years later, when the housing crisis hit the U.S., he founded The Financial Crisis Observatory. He founded it as a psychological response to the discourse he had with the markets. People didn’t have a clear view of what was happenin

Michael starts today’s podcast reading the biography of bestselling author Napoleon Hill. Napoleon was born in 1883 and died in 1970. He is most known for paving the way for the new thought and personal success movement with his book, “Think and Grow Rich,” which has become one of the best selling books of all time. Its premise is to help people realize they have the power to create success within themselves by way of conscious and unconscious thought. His message is straightforward, pragmatic and clear. For the remainder of the podcast Michael plays a presentation by Napoleon. The presentation is centered on making a goal and how to use certain tools to achieve that goal. Napoleon starts off by explaining the power of motives. He says you have no right to ask yourself or anyone to do something unless you give an adequate motive. If you give someone a good enough motive to buy something from you or give yourself a a worthwhile reason to achieve a goal you can sell or accomplish anything. You can also trick yo

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Barbara Fredrickson. Barbara is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and the Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at the University of North Carolina. She is a social psychologist that conducts research in emotions and positive psychology. Her main work is related to her Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions which suggests that positive emotions lead to novel, expansive or exploratory behavior, and that over time these actions lead to meaningful long term resources such as knowledge and social relationships.The podcast starts with Michael asking, “When did this fascination start with you?” Barbara explains that she has had a curiosity with emotional behavior all her life, but it was in college when she realized that almost all research was centered around negative emotions. She began being influenced by evolutionary

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel features a presentation by Charles Faulkner. Charles is a trader, mentor and author who has been featured in Jack Schwager’s “Market Wizards” series. Faulkner is an international expert on modeling the knowledge and performance of exceptional individuals, teams and organizations, and applying the latest research in cognitive neuro-science and linguistics. He has appeared on this podcast five times and has received more positive feedback than any other guest. Today, Charles’ message is about goals. It is about setting large goals that are above and beyond your everyday concerns. Goals that give your life purpose. Charles comes at this topic in a pragmatic and scientific way. He breaks down how our brains function best, making goals easier to obtain. The first example he gives is a “monkey see, monkey do” experiment. The experiment showed that when you do something repetitively in the correct form, you have a much higher success rate than if you were to

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Ben Carlson. Ben is the Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He first gained fame with his blog, “A Wealth of Common Sense.” Following his blog success Ben wrote the book, “A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan.” “A Wealth of Common Sense” is geared toward helping investors gain a simpler decision making process and developing a clearer way of thinking. This is where Michael and Ben take the conversation on today’s podcast. Ben says that people usually become their worst enemy while trading. Cycle to cycle or fad-to-fad is how so many plan their investing rather than building their trading off a solid foundation. Studying the emotional side of trading is a relatively new concept that has sprung up in the last couple decades, which causes people to overlook the necessity of its study in their trading. Ben says, “Envy is the worst of all sins because nobody enjoys

Today marks 400 episodes on Trend Following radio. To celebrate Michael has put together a compilation of Tom Basso interviews. Tom has been on Trend Following Radio four times and his interviews have been among the most popular episodes airing on the show. Michael plays the interviews back to back and throws in a bonus interview at the beginning. The bonus excerpt is a Tom Basso presentation from the early to mid 1990s. Tom Basso is most famously known as “Mr. Serenity” in Jack Schwager’s “The New Market Wizards”. Now retired from managing client money, Tom was president and founder of Trendstat Capital Management. He became a registered investment advisor in 1980, a registered commodities advisor in 1984, and was elected to the board of the National Futures Association in 1998. Throughout this 4 1/2 hour podcast Michael and Tom cover a broad range of topics including: Tom’s background and how he got into trading, speculation, emotional rushes, emotional devastation, catastrophic events, separating trading f

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Brett Steenbarger. This is his 2nd appearance on Trend Following Radio. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York State University, author of “The Daily Trading Coach,” “The Psychology of Trading,” and “Enhancing Trader Performance.” His newest work is “Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes.” Michael and Brett start the podcast off by asking the question, “Do people really have that burning desire to succeed?” Brett says he does believe traders are drawn to trading for the money outcome, but also for the allure of not working a 9-5 job or the dream of scoring easy riches. Brett breaks it apart further by explaining the motivations for different traders: Practice and process are essential. He says, “You hear traders talk about finding your edge and sticking to your edge.” Finding your edge is a continual process because the markets are forever changing. You must adapt. Brett goes on to discuss the

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel talks critical thinking and behavioral finance. He begins with an article excerpt about locker room etiquette and loops around to the parallels between sports psychology and trading psychology. Michael argues that critical thinking has gone by the way side in the general populace and if you have an alternate way of thinking, one that is not with the masses, then you have a leg up. Digging in Michael explores excerpts from a paper by Howard Marks titled, “Inspiration from the World of Sports.” The paper outlines the consistencies between sports and trading. Michael discusses bullet points from the article; 1. Trading and sports are competitive. Some succeed and some fail, and the distinction is clear. 2. In the long term the better returns go to superior investors. 3. An investment career can feel like a basketball or football game with an unlimited number of quarters. Michael also explores from Howard Marks the career of Yogi Berra, his achievements an

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Jim Rickards. Jim was front and center during the 1998 LTCM blow-up. He was a partner and general counsel for Long Term Capital Management. Following their blowup, he was principal negotiator in the 1998 bailout of LTCM by the Federal Reserve. He has had a bird’s eye view of some of the most interesting events in the economy over the last 20 years. Michael and Jim dive right into the sequence of events that lead to the devaluation of the Thai Baht in May of 1997. Jim then goes into the chronology of events that took place leading to the fall of Long Term Capital Management. He makes clear that LTCM had some of the brightest brains in finance working for them at the time, including Nobel Prize winners and a vast number of PhD’s from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc. Jim summarizes the events prompting Russia to default on their debt which let loose a sequence of events leading to LTCM losing four billion dollars in one month. Wall Street car

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Kathleen Eisenhardt. Kathleen is Co-Author of the best selling book “Simple Rules.” She is also the Co-Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Her book’s foundation is based on the argument that too much structure and too many rules don’t get products out the door and the other extreme, no rules or structure tend to not produce results either. In short, simplicity beats complexity. Her book “Simple Rules” is not just about rules in business, but in all aspects of life; sports, entertainment, investing, diets, etc. Kathleen defines simple rules as shortcuts that save on time and are more commonly known as, “rules of thumb” (heuristics). Michael and Kathleen pull in examples from Google, Netflix, The White Stripes, Billy Bean and the Oakland A’s, General Motors, Stanford football and an expedition in the South Pole launched in 1912. Kathleen shows in all the scenarios how people who modeled the past failed and how the simple rout

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Rob Walling. Rob may not be a trader, but he is a serial entrepreneur. And trading at its heart, after all, is an entrepreneurial activity. Rob started early. When he was eight his parents purchased an Apple computer and he learned to code to create video games, and when he got into college he realized coding could be profitable. He asked himself, “What can I do that I can leverage?” In the late 90’s he got his first paid job writing code for a consulting firm and around 2007/2008 he transitioned full time into creating and producing his own products.Rob talks about learning from every job and every encounter. He speaks to real life experience and how it is paramount to success. Rob was passionate from the start about coding. He did it long before he thought it could be a paying gig. Michael and Rob also give examples of why you need to start at the beginning and figure out how to build your audience. If you are in your 20’s you especially n

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael talks the timelessness of sticking with your system. Michael uses Jack Schwager and his books Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards as prime examples of timelessness. Although they were written years back, he argues they have not lost an ounce of value in today’s trading world. Michael harps on critics that say the Market Wizards books have no place in 2015 markets, noting that one of the great concepts introduced in Schwagers’ books was the notion of “systems”. Although the concept of having a system had been around for over 100 years, Schwager was one of the first to present and teach in an interview format.Michael then segues into a clip with Howard Lindzon of Stock Twits. Howard further makes the point that having “Any system is better than no system”. He goes on to say, “You have to have a system to beat another system.” Howard talks about Jerry Parker, his trading style and why he has become so successful. Covel asks listeners, “What kind of system

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Emil van Essen. Michael first heard of Emil from former turtle, Lucy Wyatt. The first thing to note is that he is not a trend following trader. He is a commodity spread trader. Emil has been a CTA since 1997, but his first trading experience was at the early age of 12. Emil delivered papers when he was younger and would take the money and invest in rare coins. The owner of the coin store happened to be a commodity trader. He helped teach Emil about trading commodities and even put in trades for him. Emil’s first trading job was in 1986 at the age of 21.Michael and Emil start the podcast explaining spread trading. Emil describes trend following as one dimensional whereas spread trading in his view has a multidimensional trading surface because of all the directions a trade can profit rather than if the market only goes up or down. Emil refers to his trading as not systematic but model driven. At the base of his every trade is a model and they

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael talks about one of his favorite subjects: baseball and numbers. He profiles arguably one of baseball’s greatest managers, Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles. Weaver believed that baseball, just like trend following, always came back to numbers. He knew the right formula was the 3-run home run. Coincidentally, Covel’s favorite team growing up was the Orioles. They were one of the “it” team in the 1970s and early 1980’s. Unknown to most, Earl Weaver, the Orioles manager, had a strategy that was a foundation for the book (and later turned Hollywood movie) “Moneyball”. His approach to building a winning team not only applies to baseball, but also to many other aspects of life, including trend following. Covel plays a clip about Weaver, profiling how he operated and changed the mentality of how to put together a baseball team. Focusing on every “out” was at the very core of his strategy. He looked at the whole arc of the game rather than just the beginning, mid

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio Michael Covel interviews Charles Poliquin. Charles is recognized as one of the worlds most successful strength coaches and has coached Olympic to professional athletes. He speaks with Michael about his new venture with Ed Seykota as well as his vast health and exercise knowledge.Poliquin was Canada’s second youngest black belt at the age of 14, has mastered 6 different martial arts, and is influenced strongly by Bruce Lee, karma and other eastern influences. After getting into karate at the age of 10, he moved into lifting weights at the age of 14 and fell in love instantly with the sport. He took on his first training client in his first year of college at the age of 17 and has named himself the “Strength Sensei ”.Charles gives countless bits of advice on how to keep moving forward in life and fitness: “If you don’t have an expiration date then the goal doesn’t mean anything. There is no pressure.” Keep the competition going with yourself. Also, have a good balance

On today’s episode of Trend Following Radio, Michael opens up about uncertainty and uses one of his favorite writers to illustrate: Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is certain that he doesn’t know, and sees doubt and skepticism as our only path to enlightenment. He invites us to open up to the possibility that doubt will always be in front of faith–whatever that faith may be about. Covel sees Hitchens insights well beyond religion, and connects his comments to his trading world.Next, Michael excerpts a recent soundbite from Jim Simons on Trend Following. He is one of the most successful traders ever. A great track record. 100% systematic. Uses price action. He is very clear that fundamental analysis is not his direction. How does Simons really trade? Will we ever know? No. Simons is tight lipped. Is Simons a trend follower? Does he use trend following at all? Worthy questions given his limited public statements. Covel digs into Simons recent comments about trend following asking the hard questions few are prepa

Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel has a conversation with Joey Yap, Feng Shui expert, founder of the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics and self-made entrepreneurial millionaire. Feng Shui, as Joey explains it, is “about how your environment supports you”. Further digging into the subject, Joey and Michael examine the world as a network of positive and negative energies. After explaining some of the core principles of Feng Shui, Joey discuss how the practice has been “bastardized” by the West. Westerners believe it’s the items themselves that project energy – resulting in an entire trinket industry that has developed – when nothing could be further from the truth. The items exist merely for the energy to flow around because, as Joey explains, flow is everything. Joey then goes on to discuss the myriad ways in which the tenets of Feng Shui apply to the business world. Think of a bustling office as a closed environment of continually crossing positive and negative energies. Collectively, this ene