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Year: 2009
Advice on Breaking into Trend Following Firms
An email in today:
My name is [name] and I am currently a senior at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. I became interested in trend following about a year and a half ago and have studied it and put it into practice over the past year. I am very interested in pursuing a career in trend following. I went through investment banking analyst interviews earlier this year and became very disenchanted with that entire industry. After that experience I absolutely know that I want to be in the trading industry. I was wondering if you could possibly pass along contact information for any of the trend following fund managers that you have interviewed/know. I believe in the system and have been trading my own capital for a few months now but I believe the experience that would come with working with a experienced trader would be invaluable. Attached is my resume, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards, [name]
Thanks for writing. If you want contact information alone, that is freely available with a few mouse clicks. However, if you want to know legitimate ways in the door, or ways to connect to truly get something out of the experience, I do provide consulting (this is capitalism after all). It’s funny, I did not exactly set out many years ago to become connected, but there is no doubt a method to my madness. If you are in school or just out of school, and are serious about finding ways to connect, I can help. Consultation is available.
How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
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• Performance
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Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.
Inspiration from Top Trader: Kevin Bruce
Feedback in from a client:
“I’ve been re-watching the DVDs and I have to say the Kevin Bruce one is my favorite. The guy was self taught!?! Started with 5k?!? (even accounting for inflation is still amazing), developed a system with a hand-held calculator in a gas station [while working his way through college]!?! That’s amazing. The best part was when the lady at his gym thought he was a construction worker.”
How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
Also jump in:
• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us
Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.
Top Female Trend Follower: Leda Braga of BlueCrest
A fund manager (and client) writes me from Brazil:
Hi Michael. you ever heard about Leda Braga? She is a Brazilian trend follower with more than $1B USD in assets. She runs BlueCrest and Man has been allocating in her fund for a long time now. Interesting that she is a women, Brazilian, a trend follower and few people know her.
Very quiet firm…more:
Braga, whose $8 billion BlueTrend Fund is a momentum-based, trend-following fund, stands alone as the world’s top female portfolio manager in terms of assets under management. Although she prefers to fly under the radar, fellow hedge-fund managers swoon over her knowledge of FX/interest-rate hybrids, equity derivatives and interest-rate exotics, offering praise composed of equal parts shock and awe. As one multibillion-dollar hedgie puts it: “I met her at a Tokyo conference, and if there were ever a quant strategy I would invest in, it’s hers. She’s constantly stressing the need to upgrade and refine trading systems, that you can’t just walk away and expect them to perform with markets shifting so quickly. She’s a dynamo.” Braga heads BlueTrend’s quant strategies. She’s also the president of BlueCrest Capital.
Braga, 42, attended Imperial College in the U.K., where she earned a Ph.D. in engineering and worked for three years after graduation as a lecturer and a research-project manager. She is reportedly the largest staff equity holder in parent company BlueCrest, after legendary cofounders Bill Reeves and Michael Platt. Chances are this might have something to do with the massive returns she has bagged since her fund’s inception in 2004, not to mention her flawless handling of the subprime crisis, which has flummoxed many of her competitors. “Last year, the BlueTrend fund returned approximately 28 percent, net of fees, and this year it was up about 13 percent on the same basis by the end of July,” notes BlueCrest CFO Andrew Dodd.
A former JPMorgan colleague of Reeves and Platt, who quit their jobs as proprietary traders in 2000 to found BlueCrest, Braga worked for nearly seven years as a vice president and quant analyst on the bank’s London derivatives-research team before joining the spin-off and derivatives risk-management firm Cygnifi Derivatives Services in 2000. BlueCrest snared her in October 2001, deciding its successful maiden voyage into fixed-income and currency markets should be encored with some black-box strategies. Braga’s fund launched in 2002. A year later, Man Group snapped up a minority stake in BlueCrest, and the rest is trading history.
Despite all the fanfare, Braga is strikingly modest. Attempting to reach her, Trader Monthly received an e-mail in which she beseeched her assistant to ward us off. “Aaaarghhh!” she lamented. “Only the misinformed can possibly be interested in me.” Genius, it seems, doesn’t always take to the spotlight.
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How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
Also jump in:
• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us
Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.
Trend Trader Larry Hite on “Blocks”
Today I re-watched an interview with legendary trader Larry Hite that we shot. He opens his interview in the most self-deprecating way by saying that while he was in kindergarten (age 5) he did not pass “blocks”. I forgot about that line and about spit out my drink!
How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
Also jump in:
• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us
Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.
No Way Covel! Yes, Way!
I saw this:
This actually would be my one and only criticism of Covel. He makes it sound like ANYBODY can successfully create and follow a mechanical system and make money like clockwork. IMO most people are not cut out for it…The amount of discipline required is zen-like.
First, putting aside ‘trend following’, and just considering any worthwhile endeavor, people CAN & DO make anything happen in life. The Talent Code and Talent is Overrated both make a strong case against this position. Second, my book The Complete TurtleTrader is an even better response to the “everyone can’t do it” line. The story of how an actor, a musician, a drug dealer, blackjack players — novices — made millions is inspirational. I am the first one to say that the Turtle story almost seems like fiction, but it’s not.
How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
Also jump in:
• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us
Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.
Does Trend Following Work on Stocks? Yes. Period.
New research today titled “Does Trend Following Work on Stocks?”
More.
How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.
Also jump in:
• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us
Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.