Please enjoy my monologue A Love Affair With Apple with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio. This episode may also include great outside guests from my archive.
Want to learn more Trend Following? Watch my video here.
Feedback in:
Hi Michael, I have started to read your books about 6-9 months ago, and bought the only one I was still missing last week-end! I still have to complete reading of this last one, currently ‘digesting’ the various readings, while I have to fully grasp all the learning into a structured thinking of mine. Over the past 6 months I have also started to seriously listen to your podcasts and trying to catch-up with the long list of great insights. I like your personal way of thinking/speaking: incisive, clear-cut, no unnecessary compromise. Your message goes out loud and clear. Thanks for this fantastic array of shared knowledge! You have clearly influenced (directed?) my belief in price and trend following as the methodology that all successful traders use. I am now a firm believer of ‘taking charge’ and I believe ‘Trend Following’ is the way. I am still struggling a bit to put a system in place. I want to purchase one of your systems, but I am not sure which one. My sons are more knowledgeable in dinosaurs than I am, but not your types of dinosaurs! This morning, I was catching a bit on podcasts and heard you will be in Singapore later in February. I would love to meet you face-to-face. Based on your insights, I would also like to understand why in your opinion, despite using the same system described in your books, the ‘turtles’ did not all have the same amount of success: different leverage? less discipline to follow the trading signals? Do you short the exact same way as you ‘long’ the market?, etc. I am really looking forward to meeting with you in Singapore,
Very best regards,
PatrickP.S. Two words on me: I am a French national, living in Asia with my family for 8+ years by personal choice. I successfully started a joint-venture in India 8 years ago (but unfortunately did not get shares of it… ), then have been the MD of [name] in Malaysia for 2 years, and have now been developing business in Asia for [name], based here in Singapore. My personal story with the finance industry is not different than the one of many others when it comes to ‘investing/trading’. I initially thought that, as for other Industries, trusting the professional investors was the safe bet, to my greatest disappointment. Trust in banks and pensions funds has eroded with the bad years to the point where I went into reading/listening to make my own decisions. Which is where I am now…Thanks again for your wonderful ‘wake-up calls”!
Thanks! We will try for a Singapore meetup once my schedule firms.
How and why did Turtles have differing levels of success? That is a main component of my book on their story. Take a read!
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.
From Gaping Void:
I am the conduit of ecstatic trend following truth: listen.
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.
Consider (source) an excerpt:
Why is the EMF theory so widely advocated? Academics love EMH because they can claim that they have mathematics-based formulas which can predict the future even though the underlying assumptions (borrowed from physics) are provably false. For a professor, the ability to create beautiful mathematics is important since it means that they are less likely to be teased by physicists in the faculty club. Life is infinitely more interesting for an academic if they can create beautiful mathematics in their papers.
Charlie Munger adds:
“I have a name for people who went to the extreme efficient market theory—which is “bonkers.” It was an intellectually consistent theory that enabled them to do pretty mathematics. So I understand its seductiveness to people with large mathematical gifts. It just had a difficulty in that the fundamental assumption did not tie properly to reality.”
More Munger:
“The possibility that stock value in aggregate can become irrationally high is contrary to the hard-form “efficient market” theory that many of you once learned as gospel from your mistaken professors of yore. Your mistaken professors were too much influenced by “rational man” models of human behavior from economics and too little by “foolish man” models from psychology and real-world experience.”
More Munger:
“Efficient market theory [is] a wonderful economic doctrine that had a long vogue in spite of the experience of Berkshire Hathaway. In fact one of the economists who won — he shared a Nobel Prize — and as he looked at Berkshire Hathaway year after year, which people would throw in his face as saying maybe the market isn’t quite as efficient as you think, he said, “Well, it’s a two-sigma event.” And then he said we were a three-sigma event. And then he said we were a four-sigma event. And he finally got up to six sigmas — better to add a sigma than change a theory, just because the evidence comes in differently. [Laughter] And, of course, when this share of a Nobel Prize went into money management himself, he sank like a stone.”
I will add more to this on today’s podcast (will be episode 51).
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.
The markets are a science. Plain and simple. Some like to look at fundamentals and guess what will happen next. I like to look at the numbers. The facts. The only thing you can trust. Billion dollar hedge fund manager David Harding views the markets similarly:
Our approach to markets is a science. It is an unpublished science, but it is a real one. You would have thick leather-bound volumes of papers on it if there were a willingness to “open the kimono,” as the horrible modern expression has it. The process of trading our system is like repeatedly drawing different colored balls from the statistician’s apocryphal bag. As we draw out a ball it becomes part of the track record, and we put it back in the bag, but there is no guarantee that the balls will come out in the same order in the future.
Trend following is speculation in its purest form–find an edge and exploit it consistently over time. That attitude is critical for any entrepreneurial success. Throw the lottery mentality away. Forget the one hit wonder luck the press propagates to the masses of lemmings. Learn the real way to profit that goes against buy and hold (hope).
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.
A reader writes:
Hey Mike. Davie [name] Here. You know Mike, there is something that I keep hearing from two of the most prominent financial advisers in the country and it drives me crazy every time I hear it. I can’t understand how two men who are obvious very intelligent and gifted can be so ignorant of the truth. The two men are Dave Ramsey, and Rick Edelman. I have heard them both on more than one occasion in which they were promoting their buy and hold philosophies that there are no “market timers in the forbes 400 wealthiest list”. Then they go on they point out that “however, the number 2 guy on the list, Warren Buffet is a long term buy and hold guy”. This just drives me crazy Mike because it simply isn’t true and two men who are “experts” in money ought to know better. Sure there is one guy who claims to be a buy and holder on the list named Warren Buffet though as you have pointed out, he really may not have built the bulk of that wealth through classic buy and hold strategies. But that’s beside the point. The point is that of course there are many many more than that one guy who are on that same list who are indeed market timers which is just a fancy word for trader. What is it with Ramsey and Edelman Mike? Have they not heard of George Soros, or Ray Dalio, or T Boone Pickens, Stevie Cohen, James Simons, Paul Tudor Jones, Stephen Feinberg, Bruce Kovner, Eddie Lampert, David Shaw, Louis Bacon, Jeffrey Gendell, Stephen Mandel, Israel Englander, Richard Perry, David Tepper, Stanley Drunkenmiller, William Von Mueffling, John Arnold, John Paulson, or Julian Robertson??? I could go on. All of these guys to my knowledge are billionaires whose net worth is high enough to be qualify for the Forbes 400 list. And that’s not to mention the hoards of “market timers” who may not be wealthy enough to be on the list but certainly are among the top one tenth of one percent of the world wealthiest individuals. Men such as Boaz Weinstein, or Bill Dunn. You know Mike, I can name a heck of a lot more super wealthy “market timers” than I can long term buy and holders. The only super wealthy buy and holders I can name are Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch. It really annoys me that Dave Ramsey and Rick Edelman continue to claim that no one can make any money by trading. It simply isn’t true. I was the guy who sent you the article from yahoo news about the guy who lost in faith in the market. If you read that article, you would have noticed that near the end of the article, they pointed out that the man they highlighted in the article had lost about 90% of his money and only had $800K left. Unbelievable Mike! You talk about taking a 50% draw down with buy and hold! This guy was a multimillionaire with about $8 million in his retirement account, and his buy and hold strategy combined with obvious additional poor choices resulted in him losing about $7.2 million dollars! Meanwhile, these “market timers” I mentioned above had their net worths rise and rise and rise through the past few years. I know this because, I remember reading about many of them in trader monthly magazine back in 2006 and many of them had not even accumulated a billion dollar net worth by then and now most of them are multi billionaires. I really wish Ramsey and Edelman would educate themselves more on this issue before they speak. There! I’m done ranting! I love ya man!
Thanks Davie, but Ramsey and Edelman do what they do on purpose. Very much on purpose. It’s up to everyone out there to figure out their motivations for misleading. Hints for their “why” can be found here: Dave Ramsey 5 foundations.
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.
Please enjoy my monologue Critical Thinking the Trend Following Way with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio. This episode may also include great outside guests from my archive.
Want to learn more Trend Following? Watch my video here.