trend following

Wealth building is one issue…and is hard to accomplish.
Wealth preservation in todays economy is probably much harder to accomplish.

The question is… Can trend following end? First of all… anything can happen and it will happen. However as a long time trend follower, in my opinion there are numerous reasons why I do not believe trend following can or will end.

Is now your last chance to be buying gold under $1,000 or is this a false breakout? All successful trend followers and commodity traders know they do not know the future. The fact is on Sept 2 Gold broke out of a multi month consolidation.

How many Stock market Bears are itching to go short the stock market index? Probably too many to count. However regardless of all the fundamental reasons and thoughts to blindly go short the stock market index, this is not prudent.

There was an interesting article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. The article spoke about Bluetrend a trend follower & commodity trading advisor who last year earned 43.4%.

In some of my earlier posts I spoke about Tactical trading in Commodity futures. I want to provide you an example that is occurring right now in commodity futures trading. This is not from one of those web sites with commodity tips. This is real trading in a commodity market with a real commodity trade.

It has been a negative period for the US dollar in the Forex Markets. When we are trend following we really do not look at the fundamental back drop ,but it seems evident. Look at it this way… with all the debt taken on and more spending by Govt, it doesn’t make sense? If we personally ran our households this way, we would not be living in our households.

Buying Gold is picking up. The question is will Gold take out the $1,000 price range this time? Gold investing has been quiet recently. There seems no interest in the news since Gold fell off earlier in the summer. Buying Gold has fallen off. Now since buying Gold has fallen off…will Gold take out $1,000 this time since no one expects it to?

For any of those contemplating investing in the commodity markets, they need to be very aware that losses are part of the game. As Ed Seykota has taught so many commodity and forex traders… losses are like breathing. They can not be avoided. If you are not having losses..either you are not trading.. or you are risking way too little. There is no way around it!

One of the biggest reasons investors fail in commodity trading or forex trading is unrealistic expectations. In conjunction to unrealistic expectations… too many lack my holy grail of Discipline and Patience.

After being in the field since 1994 and working with many investors and traders it has become very clear to me what is the HOLY GRAIL in the Commodity Markets & Forex Markets. The whole basis of trading with CNBC, Bloomberg and others is based on trying to have an edge of information or finding some magic system or trading signals

There are many that do not understand that commodity trading and forex trading are a zero sum game. In other words in order for one forex or commodity trader to benefit ( make money) another trader loses money. It is very clear to me after all these years of commodity trading.

There are many novice traders in commodity trading & forex trading that feel they need to have accuracy higher than 70% or even 80%. This is absolutely inaccurate. These are the same inexperienced traders that believe that they can have an automated forex holy grail system.

The statement…”Millions of dollars of profit for trend followers and commodity traders” are not a figment of my imagination. In Alpha Magazine in March of 2009 they listed the top 25 earners for 2008. The fact the top 25 are involved in futures trading and more so…trend following
Quoting Alpha Magazine.

The question is it possible to generate 15% long term in commodity trading? The answer is yes and no. What is more surprising for some ( inexperienced commodity trading investors)…this is not enough. They want crazy double or triple digit profits without realizing they are increasing the potential for the same in draw downs.