Book Review: Trend Following (2)

I had a long debate inside myself before writing my book review last night.? I could have written the review recommending purchase of Trend Following, because it teaches a truth that often gets ignored in the market — following price momentum pays around 80% of the time.? As a value investor, that was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I accepted it once the evidence was clear enough.

Why I did not recommend the purchase of the book was more over tone and style.? Here are two examples: on pages 294-296, he discusses this paper that shows that Commodity Trading Advisor [CTA] performance is little better than T-bills.? There is one substantive complaint, and I agree with it, that the Sharpe ratio is a lousy measure of performance.? Most of the other arguments focus on the author’s affiliations — AIG Financial Products and Vanguard.? It is not valid to dismiss evidence off of the background of the individual.? Deal with his arguments.? So what if he worked for AIGFP?? That doesn’t make him liable for everything done there.? Same for Vanguard.? Merely because you work for Vanguard does not mean that you shill for mutual fund industry in everything that you do.

Humble Student of the Markets Cam Hui raises these objections in his comments to my piece last night.? I object to the ad hominem arguments of Mr. Covel.? If we must argue, let us argue on the basis of principle, and may the best side win.

Now, when Mr. Covel responded to me, it was also an ad hominem argument, tying me to Jim Cramer.? Now note, the first piece has disappeared from the internet, and I know not why.? Perhaps he gets that I am not a Jim Cramer clone.? To my readers I ask, how many of you think that I am like Jim Cramer in the way I advise?? I wrote a long series of articles on using investment advice to inoculate people against using stock tips from the media, partially because as Jim Cramer became more of a media phenomenon, his recommendations became worse.? He is at his best when he writes/says less, and gives you his considered opinion.? Investing and doing something sensational for the media do not mix.? That’s the conundrum of the value proposition for TSCM.

That said, Cramer does use price momentum as one of the factors in his stock selections.? He is generally a “trend follower.”? Cramer also is not a value investor.? Much as I appreciate him giving me a chance to write, we aren’t very similar.? That’s consistent with TSCM philosophy — they want a large range of views.? I wrote there for four years, and was one of their leading writers.? I rarely interacted directly with Cramer, instead, putting forth my own views, which did better (in my opinion).

I’m not Cramer, and he’s not me.? He just gave me a chance to write, for which many are grateful.? (I would tell you that he taught me how to trade corporate bonds, even though he has never traded corporates, but that would be a long story.)

Pressing on

This is not my last article on this topic.? I intend on continuing this discussion, to flesh out where I agree with Mr. Covel, because at many points I do agree, but there are complexities that need further elucidation.

The main areas I will cover in the future include:

  • When does trend following fail?
  • What other factors should we consider?
  • What constitutes adequate proof that a strategy is superior?

I credit Michael Covel for commenting at my blog, and I will answer his question, but not today.? It is a valid question, but there are other questions that can be posed to him as well.? Let the debate commence on a fair basis.

7 thoughts on “Book Review: Trend Following (2)

  1. Pingback: Anonymous
  2. Comparing you to Jim C. is ridiculous. It really is too bad (but it is instructive regarding human logic) that writing opinions regarding the stock market on a website affiliated with Cramer makes you some sort of robot. And writers are almost required to write or say things to show independence. I’m going to throw a shout out to Jeff Miller’s blog “A Dash of Insight”(linked here) as he spends a lot of time writing on logical thinking. Any reader that has READ both your’s and Cramer’s columns and views you as a Cramer trainee needs to seriously think about how they evaluate information to form an opinion.

  3. David, I applaud your original review of Covel’s book. I further applaud the way you _responded_ to his way of reacting. You are the one that is the consumate professional.

    Having researched and learned about the many ways of investing and speculating, the conclusion I come to is that most people should not even attempt it. This has nothing to do with _methodologies_. It is just that most people simply do not have the temperament and psychology to follow _any_ investment/speculating methodology patiently and persistently. The majority is simply better off saving 6% of their income in a FDIC bank savings account and let compound interest do its work for them slowly. Forget equities and bond mutual funds. Forget stocks. Most of all, forget about finding the holy grail to getting rich through investing and/or speculating.

  4. And this is why I found the likes of Jim Cramer and Michael Covel equally distasteful: they mislead into the public into thinking that just because _some_ people like trend followers or value investors are successful at it, then they too, could copy their methodology and make a go at it. That is just not true.

  5. David’s work is essentially the anti-Cramer, which makes this really bizarre.

    As a big fan of David, frankly the only thing I don’t like about him is his occasional nice comment about Cramer!! David is just much nicer than I am.

  6. Cramer is a successful manager and a pretty good guy in person; we can all learn from any successful individuals’ methods. Disagreement doesn’t have to be so personal.

  7. “It is times like these that try men’s souls.”

    Don’t recall who said that, but it seems to be so true. Trend following/momentum investing, like so many other favored theories of investing (diversification–“It works until it doesn’t.”), is being found inadequate to cope with a “fat tail” economic and market scenario.

    To me, it just points to the extreme difficulty of seeing around the corner of major economic or market trends. If a trend is established, it is easy to follow that trend (like $145/bbl oil going to a projected $200/bbl as GS projected), but it is virtually impossible to see the forces that will undercut the trend, no matter how sophisticated the modeling.

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