Getting out at the peak of any trade is luck. Your goal in trading should be to have a solid trading process. Guessing the peak or bottom of a stock is not a process, it is luck. Eventually you will go broke. Michael pulls a review into the podcast and adds commentary. This reader claims that he uses trend following and adds fundamentals as he sees fit. Smack down ensues.
Feedback in from an email conversation spanning over a few months:
Dear Michael Covel,
Thank you for your work. I recently found your podcast, and I’m listening to each one from the beginning in chronological order. So far I am up to number 28, Entrepreneurism: The Importance Of Not Doing What You’re Told. Excellent work, excellent podcast.
Best wishes,
[Name]
Thanks!
I’m still making my way through the podcast archives, and finding much value there. I note that you sometimes make references to films (delighted with the mention of Reservoir Dogs), and I wonder, have you seen the John Carpenter film, “They Live”? If you haven’t, I am sure you will enjoy it, it is a “them and us” satire on the state of capitalism, with most of “the people” in a dream-like state. Great soundtrack, too.
Is that the one with all the messaging? And Roddy Piper?
That’s the very one! I have slowly arrived at podcast 138. Up until now I tried not to email about the fact that I am a repeat visitor to Thailand, yes, I love the energy of Bangkok, and it just so happens that I will be spending two weeks in Krabi in the next couple of weeks, but you went and did a Pulp Fiction thing. I had to email. That’s it. I have an email following system. There are rules. That’s it.
Much love,
[Name]
Thanks!
Note: My newest edition of Trend Following has an audio book version out now.
Jon Gordon is an author and speaker on leadership, culture, sales, and teamwork. He has worked with numerous athletic organizations, academic institutions, and corporations. His latest book is “The Power of Positive Leadership.” He teaches people how to focus on weeding out the negative and not letting that energy poison the team.
Jon describes himself as a once fearful, negative and stressed out 31-year old. What changed all of that? His wife gave him the ultimatum: Change your life or I am leaving you. He had an “Aha” moment that gave him the revelation he was meant to write and speak. However, Jon knew he needed to work on himself first, so he started taking steps to better himself. He began by going on walks of gratitude and created a “positive tip of the week” newsletter. This lead to him creating a website, doing about 80 free talks to get started, and ultimately just going for it as an entrepreneur. Jon describes impacting others as being the greatest feeling in the world.
“The Power of Positive Leadership” and Jon’s overall message is about how to root out the negative and focus on the positive. One negative person can bring an entire team down. He calls these people “negative vampires” and says they must be addressed, called out, and kicked off the bus. Building positive leaders fosters building a positive team. You get people on your bus by the way you lead. It can’t be an ultimatum—“Be positive or your are out of here!”
I’ve just submitted a brief review to Amazon UK [for Trend Following]. I’d do the same for Amazon.com but the site keeps redirecting to the UK website. If there’s some way round this I’d be happy to post it there too. Feel free to use this in any way that might be helpful.
“Systematic trend-following may well be the best kept secret in finance. A friend of mine recently crunched the numbers on the best funds in the world. To make the final cut, a fund had to have an audited 20 year track record, and over that period also had to have earned net annualised returns of at least 20%. That’s an almost impossible hurdle. 11 funds made the final cut. Six of them were trend-following funds.
It’s not just about returns, it’s also about diversification. Trend-following funds tend to zig when other, more traditional funds, zag. And in 2008, for example, one of the worst years for financial markets in living memory, trend-following funds generated high positive returns. Given the egregious overvaluation of most stock and bond markets today, trend-following funds almost certainly have a role to play in anyone’s portfolio.
Intrigued? Want to know more? This book will likely become the bible with regard to the trend-following sector. In writing it, Michael Covel has, once again, acted as the ambassador for the industry. A great job, and an excellent introduction to one of the most fascinating – and successful – forms of trading out there.”
Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman are authors of “Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar” and their newest book is “A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.” Jimmy and Rob highlight aspects of their new book by detailing who Claude Shannon is and why he is so fundamental for our everyday lives.
Claude Shannon made the entire digital age possible. As Jimmy and Rob said, “He didn’t just think about things, he thought through things.” What made Shannon so unique? He was extremely curious about information and wanted to know about all aspects of it. He brought a lot of insights into a subject that seemingly would come from left field. Shannon was also brilliant at transmitting information and breaking the complex into the simplistic. He allowed himself to move into different fields and go wherever his mind wanted to take him but never wasting his time on an unworthy subject. He could expertly sort through what was worth working on and what was a waste of time.
How do we talk about information? How are we going to quantify information? Where did Shannon live and how did he live? Jimmy and Rob not only dug through scholarly journals to find out how Shannon thought, they also talked to the Shannon family and got to learn who he was as a father, husband and friend. When people think of Shannon’s level of genius, most think he must have short comings in his social life. Shannon did not. His colleagues, family and friends new him as a guy that barbecued, went running, and did his unreal math projects.
Another fascinating trait Shannon had was his ability to not let critics get to him. He was smart enough to know that when he did projects and knew he was right, he didn’t need to pay any attention to the critics. He had confidence that came from his kind of intellectualism. He worked on the information theory over the course of 10 years while working on other projects. By the time he had published it, he already new he was right and had moved onto his next endeavor before the critics could get to him. Jimmy, Rob and Michael end the podcast discussing how Jimmy and Rob came to write this book together and what their collaboration process was.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Information theory
Turning complex into simplicity
Complexity is the enemy
Bell Labs
How to deal with freedom in the work space
Short-term-ism in our economy
Dealing with critics and competitors
“It’s not about talking louder, its about talking smarter.” – Jimi Soni and Rob Goodman
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