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Category: Trend Following

Ep. 7: Mike Shannon Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Posted on by Michael Covel
Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon

My guests today are Michael Shannon and Jim Byers.

Shannon, an original Turtle trader trained by Richard Dennis. He was featured in Michael Covel’s The Complete TurtleTrader.

Byers is a trader and investor. In the 2006-2008 period, Byers started studying trend following; since then, he’s started a fund with his partner, Todd Miller.

The topics are the Turtle story and Trend Following.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

  • Shannon’s experience in the Turtle program with Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt
  • Historical insights and anecdotes regarding the legendary Turtle story
  • Shannon’s unlikely background
  • The personalities of Dennis and Eckhardt
  • Why Turtles with outsider backgrounds were generally more successful; and whether or not Dennis and Eckhardt were inspired by the film, “Trading Places”
  • How trend following can still be a winning game even if you aren’t right the majority of the time
  • More in depth “light bulb” moments that Byers has had since taking up trend following

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Ep. 5: Nick Radge Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Posted on by Michael Covel
Nick Radge
Nick Radge

My guest today is Nick Radge. Nick has been trading and investing since 1985. During this time Nick has worked for numerous international investment banks and spent time on the trading floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange. In 1998 Nick returned to Australia and started his own hedge fund and until 2005 he was an Associate Director at Macquarie Bank.

The topic is his book Unholy Grails – A New Road to Wealth.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

  • Nick’s beginnings
  • The analogy of hitchhiking to trading
  • The necessary emotional constitution needed to successfully stick with a trend following trading strategy
  • The popularity of algorithmic trading jargon
  • Risk management

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The Winton Papers Revisited

Posted on by Michael Covel

Feedback in:

“Hi Michael, as you know I love your work and keep buying copies of your books for friends, family and clients. I know you say that persistence pays off and I am working hard on implementing trend following in my business and also in my investing life. I have been trying to hunt down those Winton Papers that Mr. Harding gifted to you. In Australia [name] has a Managed Account with Winton that they allow retail investors to invest in, so we have started placing client monies with Winton. I have had a number of clients call in happy that Winton and Aspect made 10% last year when Aussie equities dropped 10%. I have asked all the [name] associated with Winton if they have seen [The Winton Papers]. No such luck. This morning I attended a presentation where Winton was one of the managers. As usual Winton was last so I had to listen to two other fund managers explain how great they were even though their 5-year returns were negative (both fundamentalists). Winton was represented directly by staff. One was [name], who is a wonderful lady who had just started. I have spoken to her previously…and had inquired if she had seen the papers. She came back questioning if the “The Winton Papers” were a figment of my imagination. More importantly, employee number [blank] at Winton (that was used in his intro) was [name]. He managed to confirm that yes they existed (which I already knew; see your blog 2010/11/06), however, he did not have a copy. So I guess what I am asking is there any chance you have a soft copy of the papers? Or would you like to sell your copy? Or maybe I could rent them for a period of time? Anyways hope business and family are going well. Thanks in advance. Kind regards, [name]”

Yes, I have a copy of The Winton Papers, but I have not been granted permission to distribute.

Note: David Harding of Winton Capital is profiled in my book The Little Book of Trading. He also appears in my film Broke. He has made $1 billion USD from trend following.

How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.

Also jump in:

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• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
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• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
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Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.

Trend Follower David Druz on Systems

Posted on by Michael Covel

From The Little Book of Trading trend follower David Druz has a plan:

Once a system’s algorithms and parameters are established, the system must be followed exactly and religiously. A system cannot be second-guessed or used intermittently. Values of variables cannot be altered. Parameters cannot be arbitrarily changed. A robust system works over many types of market conditions and over many timeframes. It works in German Bund futures and it works in wheat. It works when tested over 1950-1960 or over 1990-2000. Robust systems tend to be designed around successful trading tactics not designed around specific types of markets or market action. And here is the amazing thing about robust systems: The more robust a system, the more volatile it tends to be! Druz gives this advice: “There are whole families of trend trading ideas that seem to work forever on any market. The down side is they are very volatile because they are never curve-fit. They’re never exactly fit to any particular market or market condition. But over the long run, they do extract money from the market. You want to be focused on how you divvied up the risk in your portfolio, how much risk you take in each market, how many contracts you trade in each market, that’s the stuff that really counts…if you have money management wired, you can let volatility go because you know it doesn’t have any correlation with the risk of ruin. You can use volatility to your advantage.”

Wise.

How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.

Also jump in:

• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us

Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.

Larry Hite on “Being Wrong”

Posted on by Michael Covel

An excerpt from The Little Book of Trading:

One final important gem from Larry Hite is that being wrong is okay. He says he was never very good in school and not much of an athlete either. But he turned that to his advantage because he was able to grasp the idea that he could be wrong. In fact, it came as no surprise to him when he was wrong. Hite recalls with pride: “I’ve always built in an assumption of wrongness [in my trading]. I always ask myself: What is the worst thing that can possibly happen in this scenario? Then I use that worst-case scenario as my baseline. I always want to know what I’m risking, and how much I can lose. And sometimes, when you really look at it, there’s really not all that much risk [which is why you can get rich].”

More on Hite.

How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.

Also jump in:

• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us

Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.

Michael Covel Active Trader Article

Posted on by Michael Covel

My January 2012 article in Active Trader: Trend-following winners are not “lucky monkeys”.

How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.

Also jump in:

• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us

Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.

Pencil and Paper: The Secret to Success?

Posted on by Michael Covel

One of John W. Henry’s associates elaborated on the early days:

“Originally all of our testing was done mechanically with pencil and graph that turned into lotus spreadsheets, which was still used extensively in a lot of our day to day work. With the advent of some of these new modeling systems like system writer, day trader and some of the other things, we’ve been able to model some of our systems on these products. Mostly just to back test what we already knew, that trend following works.”

Had this same conversation this year with one of the interviewees for my book The Little Book of Trading. The difference? He was not talking of thirty years ago, but about being success today!

How can you move forward immediately to Trend Following profits? My books and my Flagship Course and Systems are trusted options by clients in 70+ countries.

Also jump in:

• Trend Following Podcast Guests
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Performance
• Research
• Markets to Trade
• Crisis Times
• Trading Technology
• About Us

Trend Following is for beginners, students and pros in all countries. This is not day trading 5-minute bars, prediction or analyzing fundamentals–it’s Trend Following.