Its been shitty trading for the few guys still trading the past couple years. I'll bet 90% of the hedgefunds lost money last year. Many traders looking for new careers.
Saying that Trend Following is dead is like saying that Shumacher can't drive any more b/c he hasn't finished recent race. He's still Schumacher and can drive F1 better than any anonymous a*hole on a web forum. Most trend followers have been through thick and thin, and will make new equity highs. By this time, most anonymous a*holes will be bust.
You can also make money trend following with selective discretionary entries and proper trade management....I make a living by ONLY trading the trend...buying pullbacks and selling rallies in established and sometimes new trends ( betcha haven't heard that before)....but of course if you press me I won't put up too much of a fight or write a graduate level dissertation in trying to convince you
You need a code to access. My contention is trend doesn't exist in the stock market untill after you enter. In other words, the perceived trend pre entry has zero bearing on the success or failure of your trade.
Seriously, if any money manager looking to milk a possible trend in 2012 entered the market fully diversified at any basic price action long entry trigger (the January signal was long) between January and April 2012, drew their line in the sand to exit on a breach of the 2011 close or even the January low, and held thru year end could not possibly have lost money. Just plain old price action concepts.
If "everybody guessed wrong", how did William Eckhardt make a profit? Looks like that mathematics background really pays off.
I didn't say anything to the contrary. My point was, that not the description makes a HF, but what they actually do. So they can call themselves trendfollowing but if they don't follow the trend..... well, you get it.... By the way here is what Surf is trying to say: There are trends for sure, but it is hard/impossible to follow them because they are only obvious after the fact....
I didn't need a code to access your link I didn't go through the article (yet) but Van Tharp describes an allegedly profitable and easy system in one of his older books. From memory it needs trending markets to work out. Far from certain it would be profitable today.
Exactly. Problem with trend following is you only know you were following a trend (or buying a top) in hindsight. Its the same deal with any other trade that involves betting on direction. The only consistent winners in the market are the ones who dont take risks trading direction i.e arbitrageurs, HFTs front running orders, dealers internalising orders, etc.