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Speed with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio. Michael goes back to his archives for two of the fastest men in the world. Risk takers extraordinaire!

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Michael expands on Ed Seykota’s famous quote, “Everyone gets what they want.” Who gets the money and how do they get it? Why do some seem to win more than others? How do you figure all this out and dissect it? Life isn’t about being perfect, so you need to get dirty and rely on yourself to figure it out. Some choose to take action and make things happen. Others are happy watching life pass them by. Michael explains why he chooses to take action and hopes he has critics until the day he dies.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Critics
• Creating art
• Unknown knowns
• Evergreen thinking
• Entrepreneurship

Mentions & Resources:

• Trend Following

As the summer winds down…food for thought:

• “The First Totally Honest Stock Market Story”
• Increasing Differences between firms: Market Power and the Macro-Economy
• Venezuela’s great socialist experiment has brought a country to its knees
• Goldman Cashes In on Passive-Investing Boom With Big 4 P.M. Trade
• Observations From Decades of Tracking Investment Newsletters
• The Exercise That Helps Mental Health Most
• 28 Pieces of Productivity Advice I Stole From Others That Made Me Successful
• 10 Important Trading Lessons & Tips
• Beyond Soda: How and Why Your Beverage Options Are Exploding
• In World’s ‘Happiest’ Countries, Signs of a Happiness Gap
• Uh-Oh, Stock Buybacks Exceed Capital Spending in 2018
• It’s Time for Half the Teams in Baseball to Get Weird

Enjoy!

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Bob Enck is the CEO of Equinox Funds and has overseen all operations at the fund since March of 2007. Prior to joining Equinox Funds, Bob worked for about 20 years with large, highly regulated health care organizations including Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as with more entrepreneurial venture capital funded organizations.

When was Bob exposed to trend following for the first time? What was his a-ha moment? While he was doing merger and acquisition work, a couple of his friends consistently would ask him to look over literature from their firm to get input. His first exposure to trend following came from that research. The concept of trend following clicked with him and “just made sense.” His real light bulb moment was realizing that Equinox funds could make money in up and down markets. His friends soon asked him to join their company as CEO.

What is so unique about Equinox Funds? They have paved the way in researching and developing alternative investment strategies for clients through unique investment vehicles. They created the first multi-strategy managed futures mutual fund–the Frontier Fund. In a field where many companies tend to become complacent and set in their ways, Equinox brings innovation and creative thinking to the market. Bob and Michael explore the full range of issues across the alternative space.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Trend following in up and down markets
• Drawdowns
• Trend following performance
• Discretion
• WTF
• Forecasting

Mentions & Resources:

• Bob Enck
• www.equinoxfunds.com

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Peter Leeson is an economics professor at George Mason University and is known for connecting rational choice theory with unusual domains. He looks at human behavior as a series of puzzles that are being solved by those involved. He focuses his studies on everything from bizarre rituals and superstitions to the behavior of Caribbean pirates. Peter’s work has also been quoted as “Freakonomics on steroids.”

How does Peter come up with some of his “crazy” ideas? He likes to have a broad library to read from, particularly history books. As he reads he comes across a lot of practices that may seem outlandish to most, but fascinating to him. From there he digs deeper and finds meaning in certain practices through religion, economics, politics, etc.

Throughout Peter’s work it is clear that the main motivator driving behavior is incentives. What happens when we have government incentives vs. private incentives? Michael and Peter finish the podcast talking government intervention, wealth creation and cultural behavior driving capitalistic efforts.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Somalia pirates
• Anarchy vs. government
• Medieval law and order
• Trial by jury
• Logic of incentives
• Street hustlers

Mentions & Resources:

• Peter Leeson
• WTF?!: An Economic Tour of the Weird
• The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates

Food for thought:

• Buyback Derangement Syndrome
• Rivals take more risks – Is this a good thing for money management?
• Your Fees Are Bull%$&*
• 10 Great Technical Trading Rules
• Bloomberg: Daily Profit Reporting Would End Short-Termism
• Why I use index funds
• Getting Better Every Day
• The Supreme Court Isn’t Equipped to Judge Harvard’s Discrimination Lawsuit
• Models Will Run the World
• Who’s Afraid of Abby Johnson?
• The RSI Indicator Explained
• The End of Quarterly Reporting? Not Much to Cheer About
• It’s time to put the shareholder value myth in the grave. America will be better off
• Good Things Happen in Book Stores
• Death of Active Management Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
• Zombie Index Funds Are Delivering Frightening Tax Bills
• Stock Market Is Taking Cues From the Private Market

Enjoy.

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Brooks Koepka has won three major golf championships in the last 14 months. He has had the emotional fortitude to push through the obvious pressures of being on the top, especially for being only 28 years old.

Brooks wasn’t able to go pro right out of college and moved to Europe to get his PGA tour card. He wasn’t thrilled about having to go overseas to get his chance at the pros in the U.S., but with a chip on his shoulder he used that as motivation to push forward, excel and win championships.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Emotional fortitude
• Operating outside the system
• Extreme focus
• Cryptocurrency crashes

Mentions & Resources:

• Brooks Koepka
• Soylent