Trend Following-Trend Commandments

Trust me, I would love to automate what I have, but it's not that simple.

Trading off of continuous contracts, it is impossible to actually automate. Both MultiCharts and TradeStation need to have the capacity to know that when buys and sells are entered on the continuous contract that that means to buy the front month, and whenever the contracts are due to rollover to go into the next month.

This is the only thing I cannot do, and will cost tens of thousands to implement. It's not worth it. I see my trades and I'm not under any obligation to do anything like that.

 

That's fine. We'll see how it progresses. But according to the old “price physics” site’s wild projections, you should’ve doubled your account by now by “reading the market like today’s newspaper.”

Let the newspaper (tea leaf?) reading begin!

 

I use both pp and pairs trading for my entries. They aren't exclusive to one or the other.

 

Re PP -- Its inventor can speak for himself, assuming he's able to post on e'trader these days.

Re performance of the Covel "system" -- There isn't any system; his books are descriptive.

Re "defining" trendfollowing -- In effect, Covel defines it as "whatever the big trendfollowers do."

 

Descriptions are not sufficient to teach trading strategies. Educational though they may be, they are just that, and since that was as much of what I expected I don't know why anyone would buy his books if there isn't any strategies discussed. I'm sure they're all right reads, but on elitetrader I'm expecting more quantitative formulae to discuss than a book about what others have done.

I've not seen an exact definition of trend followers so he could be taking the other traders' word for it about whether they are using a system that follows trends or not.

I'm not really interested in reading about past performance if it's not in the context of what rules any of those traders follow. As a sponsor, the ulterior motive is certainly to sell books, but that's not information that appears useful without some backtests or performance summaries to examine. Comparisons of performance sounds like a biography of the traders themselves and not at all about discussions as to why their strategies work. Merely attributing their success in trading to the fact that they identify themselves as Trend Followers does not explain why their strategies work, or anything about the edge any of them might have.

His site sells various levels of trading packages, and I'd at least like to know how well his methods work, or if the packages are just informational educational materials. That might be good for newbies but certainly not for anyone who has been in the trading business for any length of time.

 

,with that background you could curve fit backwards and you would be able to see layups,try it,after seeing how it works,you ought to be able to see it developing forward simple example,take today's low or high and use it as a starting point and draw the line left looking for highs or lows to connect...eventually you will know it backwards and forwards...thats simple,my background is carpentry,support and resistance,load,...with your background,you should be able to come up with something more complex

 

Without a mathematical definition creating a program to draw these lines that would be tradable would be very difficult. It's similarly aggravating that all of Hershey's line drawing contests are just that, and the lines have nothing to do with the strategy at all.

 

bow,i couldn't imagine putting what i see into defineable programmable data,but it is all represented by numbers ,areas on charts classified as different prices ,numbers, I can barely work a computer,but if a programmer knows the different markets,same as knows can goods in a supermarket,what shelf they are on,how many on the floor,in the backroom,cost,profit....he should be able to write a program..it's definable by number..mp numbers would be just as difficult,if you could get a program to recognize s/r ,and someone must be doing it because they hit ,stop ,then reverse or continue on a regular basis ,and if 70% of volume is computers,then it's being done,don't know,maybe you have to be a quant to write the program

 

My trend following views are publicly available:

Trend Commandments (Pearson; 11)
The Little Book of Trading (Wiley; 11)
The Complete TurtleTrader (Collins; 09, 07)
Trend Following (Pearson; 09, 07, 05, 04)
Broke: The New American Dream (DVD; 09)

Thanks for the interest.

 

No they are not! There is not a one formal definition of a trend in any of your books. If you had one then you'd post it here rather than hide behind your "publicly available views".

Cheers,
MAESTRO