Shorten your time frame and you will find plenty of mini-trends. Analogy: You look at a car in the distance, it appears to be moving slowly, but if you get close to it, it tavels really fast. The trouble is you need to revise your trading method. If you stick to your current method, I suggest you go out to the back yard and pull out some weed from the lawn. That's what I do in the south. If you live in North Dakota, too bad.
You can develop some shorter term system and combine them with your trend following methods. You can use a product like TradersStudio to combine the results of the system and see how these uncorrelated systems improve your risk adjusted performance. You can simple point and click and combine the results of multiple systems. One important point I want to make is the way TradersStudio works , the systems are each run one bar at a time so that you can do things like exit positions to rebalance your portfiolos. You even get a correlation table showing the correlation between systems you are combining. Take a look at TradersStudio at www.TradersStudio.com
they lose money. see JWH, and the other gods of TF for recent examples. surf http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...&highlight=trend+following+delusion+shattered
Most players are significantly better one or the other... ranges or trends. If you want to make more money consistently, you need to recognize which one is working at the time and trade accordingly. Easier said than done, of course.
That is only a problem if you trade one market. It makes no sense trend trending one market - it can be range bound for years. wham wipe out. But then............ We trade over 50 markets and there is always a trend somewhere. JWH has made millions so what if he is a 20-40% down. We dont chase ES/YM rabbits in the bushes, yes you can catch the rabbits but we choose to play game differently. You want see the trend eeh Metals - trending Softs - Trending Grains - Trending Indices - Trending Interest Rates - Trending Energy - Trending In fact we make our money on just a few trades - the big winners take you pick from above
As a matter of course, I shake, rattle and roll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo_vvA_lzEY&feature=related