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Hi Michael,
I am a huge fan of yours. I own all of your books and just finished reading the fifth edition of Trend Following. I also listen to your podcast daily and love all of your guests and the topics you cover. I have been fascinated with trading since I was 18. In fact, I saved up $10,000 bussing tables when I was 18 and opened up a Scottrade account. I would eventually lose all of the money as I got eaten alive by transaction costs and poor risk management. I haven’t traded a live account since then because “life” happened. I got a real job as a mortgage broker when I turned 20 and entered the rat race. I am 33 now and am about to have my 3rd child in the next few weeks. The mortgage industry has been good to me as I have been a top 1% mortgage broker in the country since my mid 20’s and make 7 figures a year. My wife is a Realtor and runs one of the top 100 RE/MAX teams in the country. We have built a wonderful life together and we have so much to be thankful for. With this said, I want nothing more than to start a career in trading. It is what I am most passionate about and I know that I will always regret not taking the leap if I don’t do it soon.
The beautiful thing about Trend Following is that it doesn’t require me to be glued to my screen all day. I can just spend 30 minutes or so in the morning, set/adjust my trades, and then head to work. I am very close to finally purchasing your flagship product and starting to trade.
Just yesterday I finished reading Larry Hite’s new book, “The Rule”, and between that and your book, I was interested in doing my own research on David Harding as he seems to be the new face of Trend Following. I was shocked to see that within the last year, he has shifted his trading philosophy away from trend following as he feels the space is too crowded.
As you can imagine, reading these articles was a bit disheartening for me. This combined with page 420 of your book where it covers the recent plateau in the performance of the trend make me wonder if I am late to the game. What are your thoughts on this? Is it just one of those times like we have seen in the past where people give up on the strategy just before it goes on a run or do you think there is some legitimate concern here? With all of the new players in the game with tons of money and computers, can the little guy even compete? Or is being the little guy actually an advantage since the size I will be trading will make me much more nimble and since I don’t have to appease investors, I can trade the optimum volatility necessary to achieve the highest absolute returns? Do you think that some of these CTA’s maybe have had to water down the risk/volatility so much in order to attract new money into the funds that they in effect removed the edge from their system?
Thank your for your time and thanks again for all you have done and all that you continue to do in regards to educating people about Trend Following.
Thanks,
Grant S.
Are you asking if trend following is dead?
I don’t see how with known evidence, especially the totality of my TF book, that can be deduced. The last thing that makes any sense is a headline war—hence why my book(s) are the best rebuttal to headlines. It’s not a subject that one man or one firm or one headline can kill. A wise thought? Look at trend following as one issue and the observation of how funds run their biz/raise assets as another.
This is all discussed on my recent podcast:
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