Please enjoy my monologue Making Money Every Month Is Fantasy 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:
Long Term Capital Management
Bernie Madoff
Leverage
Diversification
Indian Stock Market
“Leverage doesn’t matter in this case. Such consistency with low drawdowns goes against nature and cannot exist if it trades long enough.” Michael Melissinos
The following story passed along from an associate is “pure Seykota”:
“I attended a day-long seminar in February 1995 in Toronto, Canada where Seykota was one of the guest speakers. The WHOLE audience peppered Seykota with questions like: Do you like gold, where do you think the Canadian $ is headed, how do you know when there is a top, how do you know when the trend is up etc.? To each of these, he replied: ‘I like gold—it’s shiny, pretty—makes nice jewelry’ or ‘I have no idea where the Canadian dollar is headed or the trend is up when price is moving up, etc.’ His replies were simple, straight-forward answers to the questions asked of him. Later, I learned through the event organizer that a large majority of the audience (who paid good money, presumably to learn the ‘secrets’ of trading from a market wizard) were not impressed. Many felt they had wasted their time and money listening to Seykota. Seykota’s message couldn’t be clearer to anyone who cared to listen. The answers were found in the very questions each person asked. Don’t ask, ‘How do you know the trend is moving up?’ Instead, ask, ‘What is going to tell me the trend is up?’ Not, ‘What do you think of gold?’ Instead, ask, ‘Am I correctly trading gold?’ Seykota’s answers effectively placed everyone in front of a huge mirror, reflecting their trading self back at them. If you don’t even know the question to ask about trading, much less the answers, get out of the business and spend your life doing something you enjoy.”
How would you have reacted to Seykota’s speech? Walk out or be curious? Think about it.
Feedback in:
I wanted to reach out and thank you for the books you have written. I will admit I’ve read them all from obtaining them through the library system, but I now believe I will buy them as resources to reference. The “Trend Following” philosophy clicked immediately with me and listening to your podcast has really enlightened my mind considering I’ve been typically listening to Motley Fool for my job as a Financial Analyst. In a short period of time I feel I can see through the garbage that is filling those podcasts. I still listen to keep up with my CFO, but feel as if I’m a lone wolf at work with a strategy that none of them could ever understand. Within weeks of reading on Ed Seykota I have already programmed an entire Google Doc to automate my buy/sell/risk/data pull just by typing a ticker for what I want to trade. Kudos to you for following this path and providing the knowledge to us for consumption. I hope to continue to follow your path as you continue. If you are ever in Colorado feel free to check-in with me and see whether I’ve hit life changing levels yet.
My guest today is Neil Pasricha, an author, entrepreneur, podcaster, and public speaker characterized by his advocacy of positivity and simple pleasures. He is also an established speaker and his TEDx talk, “The 3 A’s of Awesome”, is ranked as the ninth most inspiring TEDx talk with over 3 million views to date. In total, he has sold over 1 million books. The book and TED talk are based on Pasricha’s blog, 1000 Awesome Things. The blog has won three Webby Awards and ranked in PC Magazines list of top blogs and websites in 2009 and 2010.
The topic is his book The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Happiness
Retirement is a lie
Loving your work
The lottery
The note card system
Criticism
Goals are never ending
Having less wants in life
“The action proceeds the motivation.” – Neil Pasricha
“Wealth exists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.” – Epictetus
Almost finished your “Trend Following” and noticed there are…[some] people having negative issues with trend following. Well, I can tell them something…
In 2006 I started with 20,000 USD, no trading training and I [took training]. The key here is that I had no trading education. In Oct 2008 I made 300,000 USD and after 7 years of trend following I turned the initial 20,000 into almost 800,000. I then thought I know how to trade and started day trading and then (as many traders before me) lost everything. I [then] came to the conclusion that I knew nothing about trading… expensive lesson for me, but I knew what was possible [with trend following].
I have for the past year gone through an extensive training process [books and a course with (name)]. I still get the [name] data every day and will soon start again. Obviously I know a lot more than before, but the important thing is that I could turn 20,000 into almost 800,000 (drawdowns, etc. included) and I made money on ONLY 35% of my trades, that is without ANY formal trading knowledge, just following the trend.
So, no one [will] tell me trend following does not work, is dead, or anything else. It is alive and well and will be forever.
My guest today is Mike Lofgren, an author and a former Republican U.S. Congressional aide. He retired in May 2011 after 28 years as a Congressional staff member. His writings, critical of politics in the United States, particularly the Republican Party, were published after his retirement and garnered widespread attention.
The topic is his book The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
The deep state phenomenon
Military industrial complex
National debt
Negative interest rates
Does your vote matter?
“If we were ever able to get the money out of politics, that would be the precursor, that’s the precondition for any other reform.” – Mike Lofgren
