I read the recent interview he did in TASC magazine. I also got his e-mail back in Nov that Surf posted, warning everyone to get out of the market when the S&P 500 was around 1230 and failing at the May highs. He warned of an impending crash coming. Now I don't have any problems with him sending out mass e-mails calling for a market top. It's not like he calls a top every two weeks like many on ET. However I find it odd that as a former trend follower taught under Dennis and Eckhardt, that he would all of a sudden violate his own principles of following the trend. BTW, this is not a discussion about whether he is right or not, I'm not here slamming his prediction. Obviously he thought we would not take out the 1230 level and briefly we did pull back. But now we clearly took that level out and we traded up to 1275. But in the article, he stuck to his ideology of being a trend follower. And trend followers believe, and for good reason, that it is foolish to try to predict the end of a long term trend. Short term trends maybe, but strong, smooth long term trends tend to go much much longer then any reasonable person could possibly guess. That's why they keep going. I guess I'm trying to figure out what the purpose is of him going against the very thing he believes in, the very thing he was taught, and the very thing he made his millions in. And what got him to deviate from these beliefs? Just a simple reason that price failed at a previous level which is preciously what trend followers laugh at. Price always fails at previous levels, at least temporarily. That's what gets so many people out of good trends. If price never stopped or paused or pulled back, well gee, trend following would be easy and fun for everyone. Anyway, this is not an attack on Curtis. I've met him and he seems like a good guy. Certainly a smart guy. I think it's fascinating studying the human condition and what outside forces in a man's life causes him at time to abandon his core principles. He did mention in the article he was about to get back into trading in a "big way" shortly. And yes, I did see that crazy youtube video he did where he seemed to be dancing in front of a camera for gay rights or something. I'll leave that for another thread.
It would be helpful to hear from Curtis himself on this topic, but my guess would be that his email was directed not at mechanical trend followers, but at friends and family who are in index funds or otherwise "amateur" investors. I'm not sure if he is running any trend following programs right now, but if he is, the more interesting question would have been: Did he leave his trend following program(s) alone while sending out that email?
It might be possible that he's dropped the whole trend following thing and has a different approach altogether now. But yeah, you've got a point. Those videos don't inspire much confidence either, top calling aside... But hey, I wish him the best. He will always have my respect for being one of the original turtles.
He actually stated in the article that he was still very much a trend follower. This is what the confusing thing was.