Please enjoy my monologue Charles Faulkner on Goals; Special Episode. This episode may also include great outside guests from my archive.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
How to set goals
How to achieve your goals
Externalizing your inner-dialogue
The importance of milestones
“We are very good at looking back on things and seeing how we got somewhere, it’s the looking forward thing that throws us off from time to time.” – Charles Faulkner
My guest today is Ben Carlson, the Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He’s been managing institutional portfolios for my entire career. He started out with an institutional investment consulting firm developing portfolio strategies and creating investment plans for various foundations, endowments, pensions, hospitals, insurance companies and high net worth individuals. He was part of the portfolio management team for an investment office that managed a large endowment fund for a charitable organization.
The topic is his book A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:
Diversification
The purpose of a long only commodities investment
Speculation
Index funds
Having a plan
Risk and Reward
Saying no
“You can’t invest in the market as you wish it would be, you have to invest in it as it is.” – Ben Carlson
David Harding is one of the most successful trend followers alive. I have had the opportunity to meet with him several times. An excerpt from The Little Book of Trading:
Who doesn’t want to make a billion dollars? Yes, I imagine there are downsides to that type of wealth, but it must be one helluva ride to produce that kind of success— especially from essentially nothing. Is it a reasonable goal for you to make a billion dollars? Well, the odds are probably not on your side for that.
However, sometimes in this world, this crazy and often chaotic world of ours, people win the lottery. They buy a scratch-off ticket and win millions. They didn’t practice. They didn’t struggle. They didn’t do anything except buy a scratch-off ticket.
On the other side are people like David Harding. Harding struggled mightily early. However, Harding stuck with it for decades and is now a true billionaire. Don’t get me wrong—Harding, like many success stories, has had luck on his side.
However, that’s not the takeaway here. The takeaway is perseverance. The takeaway is not quitting. That’s how Harding really hit it big. Without perseverance, Harding would have had no chance for luck to shine through.
What can you do? You can learn to think like a trader who has made a billion dollars. And if you think like him, and if you model how a trader like that views the world, you can put yourself in a place to possibly make your billion. Note, I said possibly. The real reason, the honest reason to think like a billionaire, is to make your first million. Anyone with guts and determination can figure a way to make their first million, but you have to stick with the ups and downs. Known as the commodities king (primarily because the press always talk about some of the markets trend followers trade as opposed to their strategy), London’s Harding could be called an overnight trading sensation— only 30 years in the making.
His trend following trading has produced, on average, nearly 20 percent a year for 20 years. Let that digest for a second as you ponder the buy and hold investments in mutual funds you may have, slowing eating away at your capital and your sanity.
These days, the white-haired financial wizard (still under 50) enjoys collecting books on economic history, some dating back to the 1860s. In my time with him, he carried that distinct American entrepreneurial spirit center stage, along with a salty tongue of randy one-liners, all wrapped in a quintessential British flair.
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Feedback from a listener who spotted David Harding in the news recently:
Not too sure whether you can access the above given online version is subscription based. I’ve attached a PDF of the article for your reference. Looking forward to the next time David Harding makes an appearance on your show.
My guest today is Brett Steenbarger, a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York State University, author of “The Daily Trading Coach,” “The Psychology of Trading,” and “Enhancing Trader Performance.” His newest work is “Trading Psychology 2.0: From Best Practices to Best Processes.” He is a trading coach, psychologist, author, blogger, and stock index trader.
The topic is trading psychology.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:
The emotional “buy in”
Checklists
Finding a smooth equity curve
Repeated performance vs. deliberate practice
The role of fitness and health in trading
The moment of now
Systems trading vs. discretionary trader
Relationship between volatility and volume
“The fantasy of easy riches collides with the reality of what you need to do to prepare to win and I think that creates quite a dissidence for many beginning traders and ultimately leads them to leave the field.” – Brett Steenbarger
Please enjoy my monologue Investing and Sports Parallels with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio. This episode may also include great outside guests from my archive.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Consistency vs. the home run
Quarterly performance
Trend following performance
Emotion in human nature
Irrationality in investing
“The market is made up of people and to beat it you have to know them as well as you know the thing you are considering investing in.” – Howard Marks
“The future ain’t what it use to be” – Yogi Berra
“Consistency and minimization of error has always ranked high among my priorities and they still do.” – Howard Marks
My guest today is Jim Rickards. Jim was front and center during the 1998 LTCM blow-up. He was a partner and general counsel for Long Term Capital Management. Following their blowup, he was principal negotiator in the 1998 bailout of LTCM by the Federal Reserve. He has had a bird’s eye view of some of the most interesting events in the economy over the last 20 years.
The topic is all that is finance.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:
Jim talks about the three elements that his model is based on: behavioral finance, complexity theory and inverse probability. He goes into great depth on what all of those models are and gives real life examples for them.
