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Inspirational Proof

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Hi Mike. Thank you for the latest newsletter and for introducing me to Asacker and Watts. The podcast with Tom Asacker is superb. The final part, listening to Alan Watts moved me to tears, what he said is so true and said so eloquently. I have two daughters and hope to convince them to work for themselves when they get through their education. I hope they will listen to your podcast at some point – they’re aged 11 and 13. Your own story of itself is inspirational and proof that belief is crucial. Incidentally, JOB, stands for; JUST OVER BROKE! I heard that many years ago, and how true it is. Which ever part of the world you’re in, have a good day.
Best wishes,
Rob

Thanks!


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Day Trading is Not Trend Following

A recent email:

Hi Mr Covel, I am Michael Yang, a Chinese trader, also a reader of your book. May I ask you a question? I have already found a way to identify the trend, and I agree with your method. I always trade by following the trend. These days, I think of different time frame and find two general ways to trade. The first one: I try to identify a long-term trend in a big time-frame, just like day chart or 4-hours chart. Then I try to find any following-trend signal in a smaller time-frame. For example, if I find a down trend in a 4-hours chart, I will ignore all buy signal in any time-frame that shorter than 4-hours. I will follow all sell signal in 1H chart, 15M chart, even 5M chart. By this way, I think I can follow all big trend that identified in 4-hour chart. But, I will miss some big reversal trend. Because any trend change begin from small time-frame, and then big time-frame. The second one: I try to trade in any single time-frame. I will follow all signal in a single time-frame, buy, sell, and buy, sell, and then buy,sell. By this way, I can hold some position that against big trend in big time-frame and make a big stop loss, but I cannot miss some reversal trend. I follow all trend in a single time-frame. What is your opinion on these two ways? Which one do you think is better for traders? Thank you!

I have never met a successful trend following trader trading 1H, 15M or 5M time periods. That’s not trend following. That’s gambling. Feel free to follow-up with any questions.


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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.

Secrets, Secrets, Secrets!

A composite conversation had over the years:

Why are you teaching trend following secrets?

There are no secrets. There is only knowledge you don’t yet possess.


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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.

Why Do Things Trend?

Feedback:

Michael, I very much appreciate your podcasts you do. As I have been working to do more and more trend following trades, I am finding my job very boring. In a good kind of boring way though! The podcasts keep me inspired. Also a thought for you. Have you spent much time listening to the sports broadcasts on ESPN or other sports channels? I feel like when I flip to CNBC anymore it is like fingers down a chalk board with all of the babbling. I have never been a big sports fan, but I do tune in during college football season a little more. I am now finding that Sports center is becoming like fingers down a chalk board as well. It is the same as CNBC, a lot of research and predictions based on very little other than opinions and drivel that often times never pans out the way one would expect! Thanks again for the work you do!

Does that mean I am not the chalkboard!?

You are definitely not the Chalk board…I thoroughly enjoy your material and it has helped me immensely! In fact I like it well enough I give your books out to some of my clients and bought the DVD trading course! I am going to apologize upfront that this email may get a little long and I know you are extremely busy but there is something weighing in my head that I thought you may be able to shed some light on, or point me in the right direction for some added information. I have been putting a lot of thought into the “Why” of Why a market moved up or down. I have posed this rather simple question to myself “Why do markets move higher or why do markets move lower – essentially why do they trend?” I think I have read nearly all of your material as well as several other books and have done some online research but have not yet found a satisfying explanation of why price moves higher or why price moves lower. I am not being critical of the information I have read and it may even be my own fault that I have glazed over something significant and may have missed the answer to my own question in your writings but for myself the question of “why” a market moves (trends) has been nagging at me for the last several months. As I have posed the question to myself, I have chosen to examine the question in the most general terms and in a way that is most robust to any market. Meaning that I am looking at in the broadest context and not necessarily in the minutia of the every few day moves or intraday moves but more generally why does price continue to generally keep moving in one direction or another for a period of time. From another perspective, I am looking at it in the context of what is the one common element across ALL markets that makes price go higher or go lower. I have two motivations for getting to the bottom of my “why” question. First, I have clients that call everyday with the same dumb question and it goes something like this – “why did the corn go up today or why did the cattle go down today?” I sort of feel like a dumbass when I tell them things like it rained out today, or exports were better than expected or the cash cattle market is stronger because I know that to the root of why a market did what it did has nothing to do with any of my standard answers, but for the moment that’s what they like to talk about and I’m not sure I really have anything better that will satisfy them. So essentially I would like to give them a better answer to their why question. My second motivation which is the stronger of my two reasons for going in search of the “why” is my stronger motivator. My thoughts are that if I better understand the “Why” of Why a market is higher or lower (or trending) I think it lays a better foundation to my own understanding of why trend following works so well. I see that markets trend and your information offers a lot of compelling information for trend following, but I really have been struggling with Why they trend. My thoughts have been that if I can fully understand and articulate why they trend I will become an even better trend following trader. Over the course of the last couple of months I have come up with my own hypothesis to the question and am fairly satisfied at least in my own mind why markets move in one direction or the other but have yet to find any writings that truly validate my thoughts. My hypothesis of the “Why” is so extremely simple that I am sitting here thinking to myself… Can it really be that simple? So here I am posing the question to you… In your writings or in others writings that you have come across, have you found a very straight forward answer to “Why” markets trend or why markets are higher or lower. Essentially we see that markets do trend in one direction or another but why do they trend?

No one knows exactly why. Some don’t like such a short answer… the lack of a fixed for sure answer unnerves some. Don’t let it unnerve you. That’s the trick. The goal is after all to make money, right? The goal is not to know why is it?


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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.

Austrian School and Trend Following

Feedback in:

Mr. Covel, I am currently reading “Capital and Its Structure” by Ludwig Lachmann. Lachmann was an Austrian School economist who studied under Hayek at LSE in the 1930s. This book is one of the seminal works on Austrian capital theory. Towards the end of the second chapter, Lachmann develops the concept of “meaningful” and “meaningless” price movements and links them to random and permanent economic forces. He then gives an example. Lachmann’s treatment of his idea in the example is essentially a Nicholas Darvas box theory, breakout, trend following description of price movements in the economy. Lachmann is not referring to stock or commodity prices per say, but upon reading his example I immediately linked it with trend following. The relevant passage can be found here, starting on p. 30 (p. 40 of the PDF version of the book).
Sincerely,
Augustus Van Dusen

Nice find!


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.

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Trend Following Podcast Guests
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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.

Risk Management, Stops, Exits, Losers and Winners

Feedback in:

Hello Michael, thanks for accepting my friend inquiry. First, I want to say that I am a big fan of your podcast and interviews. Really great stuff. About myself? I have traded for 5 years, but have not traded profitably. I think my largest hurdle is not holding onto the winners. I do not give my entries enough room. Therefore I keep my losers very short, but very often see the position run after stopped out. In a nutshell my strategy is to move the stop to the entry point as soon as the position has a little bit of room. But so many times the position turns around just to touch my stop and then move on. Do you have any advice for me? Would you say that’s just risk management and part of the business? Because I think I miss too many good trades with this strategy. Thanks a lot in advance and have a nice time in Asia.

Frank

My first advice would be to read one of my books. Not a dodge to your question, but my books are filled with the necessary detail not easily put in one email response.


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.

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Trend Following Podcast Guests
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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.

Money Management Clarity Called For

Feedback in:

I listened to your recent podcast with Jason Russell. The part concerning the importance of money management was interesting. My question: what is meant by money management? It seems to be a term that everyone uses but never really defines and it’s always good, right, just and American. Any trade you do that reduces your risk and volatility is good? And, the big question: when do money management trades become discretionary trades that are used in place of following the system? Back in the early ’90s when I sat in front of my CQG and got spooked by volatility I would override my system exits and reduce my positions only to have to buy them back a few days later. I correctly called that discretion and a lack of discipline – a trader must follow the system and enter and exit only when the system rules dictate it. Now, all of these ideas can be programmed and can be called “money management” when, in my opinion, they are little more than systematized discretion. Is it no less discretion and panic driven when the computer is telling you to do it? So many of the trades are not part of the system – entry, exit, stop loss – that produced the 2000 trade sample size that makes one feel that should rely on a trend following system. What’s the difference between a necessary sample size and “it’s worked in the past?” A lot. CTAs need to face this issue.

Thanks for the feedback [Name].


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.