trend following delusion shattered

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No problem with your general concept. I trade trend all day long. I do want to ask the obvious questions however.

1. Does the fund permit the kind of "in and out" trading you show?

2. Is there a penalty for excessive transactions?

Thanks,
Lefty
 
Lefty, I have traded this fund for a couple years now. You have to watch your trades (min. hold time is 30 days.) I actually use a filtered version of the ema crossover, requiring an macd histogram (233/34/21) confirmation to get the trade.

However, here's one you can trade till the cows come home. It's IWN (Russell 2000 Value) traded with a 34/8 ema crossover.
 

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Lefty, here's a composite equity curve trading three ETFs (EWO, IYR and IWN) using a combo of ema crossover, macd histogram crossover and stochastic histogram crossover for each of the three ETFs, i.e., each ETF has its own trend trading signal.

The params I use are always Fibonacci numbers to avoid overoptimization.

For trading managed funds like ODMAX, you must be familiar with the fund's prospectus re "market timing," otherwise you'll be banned in a heartbeat. Oppenheimer is pretty generous, allowing a trade after a 30 day minimum hold. Most of my sigs trade less frequently than that so I'm in the clear.
 

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Quote from Lefty62151:

Yes, you have a good point. "If I can't make a profit, its not my fault, it must be that no one else can either". Too much of a blow to the ego.

Ironically, admitting that I didn't have all the answers enabled me to go out and look for the tools I needed.

Since this thread opened I have heard from a significant number of traders who suggest that their own systems use at least some aspect of trend following. To make a simple point, it would be impossible to take a profit (or loss for that matter) unless price trended at least a little bit. Knowing this financial fact of life, one can see how silly the underlying premise of this thread is.

So once again, can one know absolutely when price will trend?
No.... Does one have to know absolutely in order to have a profitable business? Certainly not.

Take Care Peter
Lefty
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you can't compare being the house, as in vegas, to being a retail direct access trader. ofcourse, people make money following supposed trends, but people also lose money trying to follow trends. there is no quantifiable edge to trend following---which does not mean it will not work for some people sometimes. try saying, "i'm a trend follower" when raising institutional money--it does't work--( unless you have a succesful record with SIZE and TIME traded--even then you best have something else to say) if its not quantifiable, generally big money does not want to hear about it.

is trend following an art rather than a science?

OR

is succesful trend following simply random distribution of results across the population of traders ?
 
If you were to take a simple system like jeff coopers 1234 set-up and put stops on it apply it to market leading stocks you see that there are periods of steady gains followed by periods of steady chop.

Then if you apply it to hourly charts you see the same thing.

And it happens over and over. Now it so happens that the 1234 works great during momentum markets. But overall it would be up a little down a little or about breakeven depending when you use it.

Now the same thing goes for trend following systems.

Does that mean it does not work or it is not quantifiable. no. It means it works and times, does not work at others and you are hoping as you are hoping with any other system that the market reverts to the past behavior before you run out of cash.

If trend trading was so non quantifiable how come playing for the reversion to the mean got your buddy blown up a few times?


The fact you buddy lost hundreds of millions proves the market trends at times. I was selling rallies with the trend as V.N. blew up.

During asian currency crises I had money invested with Clark Global. I followed his trades he was buying new highs and selling new lows an he made about a 40% return in a few months.

I also believe from what a Broker told me that Clark Global has one of the best records in the business. If that is true that he is a trend follwer with very quantifiable results.
 
Again it is always the losers who say "it cannot be done".

Obviously they are unable to come to terms with the facts. Either they were successful or they failed. Adults take responsibility for their actions. The rest are simply whining little children.

Lefty
 
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