Voyager 1 launched in 1977. It’s now more than 15 billion miles from Earth, and next month it will be a full light-day away. It still sends data home using about 69 KB of memory (less than a single email photo), a digital tape recorder, and code written by engineers who used slide rules.
It doesn’t need more. It was built for one long, patient job, and it does that job very well.
Trend following works the same way.
You’re not racing anyone.
High-frequency traders spend millions shaving microseconds off their orders. Trend followers hold positions for weeks or months. Whether your order fills at 10:00:01 or 10:04:30 makes almost no difference over a six-month trend.
The whole tech stack:
End-of-day price data. No tick feeds and no expensive real-time terminals. Daily closes are enough.
A spreadsheet or simple script. A moving average or breakout rule fits in a few cells. Fancy code doesn’t make a rule work better.
A position-sizing calculator. This matters more than anything else on the list, and it’s basic arithmetic.
A reliable broker. You need low costs and dependable execution, not speed.
A backup plan. You need a second device and a written copy of your rules, so an outage doesn’t force you to improvise.
The real edge is discipline
Voyager has lasted almost 50 years because it’s simple, sturdy, and doesn’t do anything it wasn’t designed for. Your system should be the same. If it needs constant changes, more data, or faster machines to keep working, that’s a sign something is wrong with the system.
Keep it simple and let it run.
Learn the rules behind trend following, and the systems to apply them.
See the coursesMore from Michael Covel: Books · Podcast · Trend Following course