“As I near my one year anniversary of being invested with a trend following strategy…”

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Mike,

As I near my one year anniversary of being invested with a trend following strategy I can reflect and say what a ride this has so far been! In a way I am glad that it has been a year that saw me first enjoy a strong run-up which eventually gave way to the psychological test of a significant drawdown. I’m quite pleased – both with the resiliency of my system, but even more-so with my mental fortitude over these ups and downs.

Over the course of this year I’ve also managed to read the entirety of the Hindu epic called The Mahabharata. One of the concepts that caught my attention was the idea of getting a gift for one’s “preceptor” after completing a stage of learning. Though I still have a ways to go, and have learned from a handful of people, I still consider you to be my primary teacher. So if you’re open to it I would like to honor that tradition and send you something as we approach year’s end. To that end do you drink whiskey?

Lastly, I did have a question towards which I would appreciate your thoughts. When plugging in historic price data into a backtest spreadsheet would you recommend using back-adjusted price to calculate moving averages and ATRs? To date I have only used the straight price. I got to thinking that perhaps this skews both the moving averages and ATRs to the point where any roll dates usually result in significantly higher differences from the prior date.

Thanks,
Mike K.

But real data and real roll dates—that’s the real data. That’s the data you use.

Filed under Trend Following