Commodity Trading & Trend Following

After the MF Global bankruptcy in which segregated client accounts were possibly violated many have asked me where to leave their money when they trend follow. What saved me from disaster with MF Global was that I learned many years ago from one of the commodity trading advisors in which I invested with was to [...]

Last year we saw a significant move up in cotton. When I put this trade on it was no different than any other trade. It was simply a trend breakout trade with a low risk bet. When trend following most of your trades do not work. Bearing that in mind I take risks between .5% [...]

This year has been very tough on many trend followers. It seems that many trend followers have not made money since December of 2010. Clearly there are exceptions such as Chadwick, Fort LP and Saxon however the majority including myself are having a flat year at best. The standouts on the downside are Chesapeake and [...]

There are those Madoff lovers who want consist smooth returns. Well they do not exist in the real world. As much as there is correlation between commodity trading advisors there is a randomness of returns over time. Some commodity trading advisors seem to have a great run and then hit a wall with some ugly [...]

It is always enjoyable to watch Marc Faber. It is even more funny to think that he can predict so many markets. Listening to “Gurus” can be very expensive to ones net worth. Maybe he is right maybe he will not be. Marc Faber predicts the US dollar will rebound, however Marc Faber is not [...]

Trend following in 2005 and 2006 had to be one of the hardest and challenging periods for trend followers. Not just my trend following was terrible but the majority of the CTAs that I had invested hit what I would call 6th sigma draw downs in the 30% range. Even worse than the 30% draw [...]

There are clearly many brokers out there but only several stand out as far as experience,knowledge and integrity. I want to share with my readers Mt. Kemble managed Futures. Todd is an IB for MF Global and has tremendous experience in the managed futures arena. I feel lucky to have found Todd. If you are [...]

If you know the answer I would be shocked. The markets are moving from extreme pessimism and fear to greed and folly. Every day the news is gyrating the markets. I am not just referring to the stock and bond market, on our trading screens( if we bother to look) are seas of green and [...]

There are many in the investment world that believe that they can negate risk by investing in Hedge Funds. The truth can not be further removed. There are those in the investment world that think that there exist gurus who can grind out profits for them regardless of market conditions. The truth can not be [...]

I speak all the time that one needs a specific plan. It is not as complicated as it seems. The complicated part, is following it during the ugly draw downs or long periods in which nothing happens. One needs discipline and patience. This is an acquired attribute. I personally learned it by realizing that money [...]