trend following strategies

hey daves, we seem to be in a similar place on the learning curve... I was impressed with Shipmans book and jumped into some of his commodities on Rabo Funds. Done quite well until I realised I was exposed to sharp down turns (no stop loss allowed). Got out with 10% profit after 2 months and just before a sharp down turn. I'm now concentrating on learning more on Trading and especially Trend Following. Like you I've been impressed with the recommendations for the FSB Handbook and bought on Amazon today. I've read alot of Van tharp, Covell and The Turtles. I'm doing the Shipman seminar in Dublin. Also there are free tuitions on spread trading coming up in Cork by WorldSpreads and Delta Index (don't know if Delta's is open to public but Worls Trade is). Check out their web sites. I'd also be interested in any sharing of knowledge / learning experience, all be it from a novice/beginners perspective.
 
have been looking into this myself. Has anyone tried out the paddypower platform yet. Any opinion. It seems very user friendly however spreads may not be that good.
Interested to know opinions
 
qwertyuiop said:
Mark shipmans is very simple.

He uses a 40 week moving average.

HE goes long if the closing prie at the end of a week is highere than all the previous 12 weeks closing prices and if teh price is above the 40 week moving average and if teh 40 week moving average is rising.

HE then sells that long trade if the price dips below the 40 week moving average.

It seems he doesn't go short on trades.
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Did you use any SW to back test this simple strategy?
It should be easy and less costly to even buy good trading SW for e1000 and test that strategy then go and try spread betting blindly.

OK, I will save you money.
If such simple strategy works what do you think pros who evaluating millions of different strategies to beat the market will do with it?

If you have a great strategy no way you will share it with anybody else.

Also do not forget that active trading is the lost game in most cases over the long period of time.
Even pros and active managers could not last for many years.
Search about the smartest investment team did and how they finished (search LTCM on google) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

Hey, nobel prize winners and what happened to them.
 
MickieD03 said:
hey daves, we seem to be in a similar place on the learning curve... I was impressed with Shipmans book and jumped into some of his commodities on Rabo Funds. Done quite well until I realised I was exposed to sharp down turns (no stop loss allowed). Got out with 10% profit after 2 months and just before a sharp down turn. I'm now concentrating on learning more on Trading and especially Trend Following. Like you I've been impressed with the recommendations for the FSB Handbook and bought on Amazon today. I've read alot of Van tharp, Covell and The Turtles. I'm doing the Shipman seminar in Dublin. Also there are free tuitions on spread trading coming up in Cork by WorldSpreads and Delta Index (don't know if Delta's is open to public but Worls Trade is). Check out their web sites. I'd also be interested in any sharing of knowledge / learning experience, all be it from a novice/beginners perspective.
Click to expand...

You need to have provable (back tested) trading strategy with an edge to consistently win the game.
You are in the profit only due to the luck and nothing else.

If you entered the position just before that sharp down you will be wiped out in probably 1 day.

Academics proved that active trading and market timing is not for individual investors. They also proved that active management pros are making lower return then the market index (e.g. world index or S&P500 or whatever index they are benchmarking against)

Save your time and money and go away from the hardest way to earn money (futures or spread betting and options).

Best of luck.
 
have been looking into this myself. Has anyone tried out the paddypower platform yet. Any opinion. It seems very user friendly however spreads may not be that good.
Interested to know opinions
Click to expand...
You will probably find that many SB companies are in fact very similar in terms of the user interface, software and features you get.
In terms of spreads I guess the bigger companies in the UK have smaller spreads. These companies also carry way more contracts than the smaller (Irish) companies.
Then on the other hand, the UK SB companies only accept sterling(£) and dollar ($) for certain contracts whereas the Irish firms take everything in euro (€). But your account is in € even in the Uk companies and you can convert the currency each day so it is less exposure than you would think.
 
qwertyuiop said:
Mark shipmans is very simple.

He uses a 40 week moving average.

HE goes long if the closing prie at the end of a week is highere than all the previous 12 weeks closing prices and if teh price is above the 40 week moving average and if teh 40 week moving average is rising.

HE then sells that long trade if the price dips below the 40 week moving average.

It seems he doesn't go short on trades.
Click to expand...

Use the trading SW to check how valid is this strategy.
Why risk money on something not tested on historical data and across many markets.

Such strategies and many more are tested in academic world and they are not beating buy&hold market index strategies.

Active trading is mostly destined to underperform their benchmark index and that is proved.

This is not the game individual investors are winning too often and you are against pros.
 
Zoran said:
Use the trading SW to check how valid is this strategy.
Why risk money on something not tested on historical data and across many markets.

Such strategies and many more are tested in academic world and they are not beating buy&hold market index strategies.

Active trading is mostly destined to underperform their benchmark index and that is proved.

This is not the game individual investors are winning too often and you are against pros.
Click to expand...

Shipman claims it is back-tested and also claims to have been making money from this strategy for years.
 
qwertyuiop said:
Shipman claims it is back-tested and also claims to have been making money from this strategy for years.
Click to expand...

I do not think that anybody can follow his exit strategies - he mentioning 4 exit strategies.
Which one you are going to choose for what position?

Some of them are very descriptive so hard to test them
How the hell he tested something that is not possible to describe mathematically?

Would you tell me his exit strategies please so I will test the results myself?
Tell me also what securities you want me to test the strategy against?

I assume the idea is to go on his seminars to pay more money and he will teach you how to do it successfully.

I really doubt it.
 
Just to add this:

I am not claiming that Mr. Shipman did not or will not make the money in spread betting or any other way.
But that does not mater to me or you.

What mater's is that I do not see how to use his methodology from the book together with any kind of investing (not just spread betting) in my favor.

I will rather trust academics, well known books and proper strategies to investing.
 
We better all listen to Zoran.....forget about investing, give up on any dreams you might have, do not even think about tyring to learn and grow cos u never will. Keep the money safely tucked under the matress!
Could you be any more of a wet blanket? we all know the risks involved and i dont think anyone here is remortgaging in order to fund spread bets.
Shipman is a self made multi millionaire, thats known as 'Proof is in the pudding'

It is possible to make money trading/spread betting and thats mainly because even the pros are wrong more than they are right and anyway most people trading are not pros. It about limiting the amounts you do loose when you are wrong and unlimiting the amounts win when a trade goes your way.

Keep on learning and trying people.
 
chicote said:
We better all listen to Zoran.....forget about investing, give up on any dreams you might have, do not even think about tyring to learn and grow cos u never will. Keep the money safely tucked under the matress!
Could you be any more of a wet blanket? we all know the risks involved and i dont think anyone here is remortgaging in order to fund spread bets.
Shipman is a self made multi millionaire, thats known as 'Proof is in the pudding'

It is possible to make money trading/spread betting and thats mainly because even the pros are wrong more than they are right and anyway most people trading are not pros. It about limiting the amounts you do loose when you are wrong and unlimiting the amounts win when a trade goes your way.

Keep on learning and trying people.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I did not say you to stop investing.
I am telling only that one should know the risk and reward and that
futures and options markets are no win game for individual investors in probably 99% of cases.

If you have the trading strategy with an edge to make money trading go for whatever you want, even spread betting.

I also started talking here because in that book there is no trading strategy.
It is not described fully as it should be to somebody to use it.
If you take 100 of us to read these 10 pages on the strategy we will all have our own interpretation.

I am myself invested in portfolio of passively managed indexed funds long term buy&hold in pension account.
In my tax account I have similar positions but in ETF's again passively managed indexed funds.
This is what trillion of dollars are in and where the smart money is.
This is what is academically proved and well known names and investment groups are focusing their attention.
Go to forum and you can read about it and post questions. You will find on that forum recognized book writers discussing how to make the good portfolio, also references to academic work and books.
Even old timer Bogle (founder of Vanguard - famous company managing trillions in such funds/ETF's) posting there:
http://www.investopedia.com/university/greatest/johnbogle.asp
Even Warren Buffet is saying that for individual investors are indexed funds.

Trust whoever you want. Up to you.
It is all risk and reward game.

Would you rather have 1m in pension with 90% certainty or 2m with 50% certainty?

At least do some additional readings and you will not regret.

It is better to ruin your dream of being rich fast now then when it is too late.
I agree if this is the money you will otherwise spend on drinks go for it.
If it is your pension money then think twice and say no no to spread betting or futures/option trading if you do not know what it is and who you are fighting on the other side.

My two cents.
 
Ok - I'm gonna bang one out here that may make me look very stupid.

But anyway - here it is.

Point 1
Basically - at any moment in time, I presume it is fair to say that the price of any liquid asset is equally likely to increase as to decrease yes?

Point 2
Also - It is widely accepted that it is very difficult to pick the top (or bottom) of a trend -and if someone does then it's just luck correct?
(Lucky in the sense that they have maximised their profits )

So - If you take this second point then it could be argued that when an asset is trending,say,upwards,then the likelihood is that should you choose to sell at any point in this upward trend,then it won't be the top - unless you are very lucky !

And if the likelihood is it's not the top - then does that not follow on that it is more likely rather than less likely that the price will rise? - which in turn negates my first point !

So is this not reason enough to follow the trend?
 
trend following system

There's an Irish company called Spread Select that provides members with trading advice based on a trend following system. I think they are at spreadselect.ie
 
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