Trend Trading book

[ssangha84]

I'm looking for a good trend trading book. Two that I was considering were "Way of the Turtle" by Curtis Faith and "Trend Following" by Michael Covel. Do you guys have any recommendations? Either between the two or any other book.

 

[Rhody Trader]

I've read both books. Way of the Turtle (my review here) is probably the more practical of the two, though both have value.

 

[retrade]

I have read both books and found "Way of the Turtle" to be a more entertaining read as well as giving better information on how to trend trade. In my opinion, Mr. Covels book is a total waste of money. He gives you lots of charts and drops lots of names, but didn't give me anything of practical value in my trading.

 

[mcovel]

Is the comparison "Way of the Turtle" to "Trend Following" or "Way of the Turtle" to my second book "The Complete TurtleTrader"?

 

[amnonco]

Is the comparison "Way of the Turtle" to "Trend Following" or "Way of the Turtle" to my second book "The Complete TurtleTrader"?

I've read all 3 and the so called original rules.
and there are several points:
1. if someone was more entertained reading one over the other - that's subjective as are my comments.
2. I read the other thread you commented on (started about the original rules), listen, your TF book, is interesting, and it's definitely thorough, but it doesn't have technical details on TF. you have stories and past performance about every successful TFer, you wrote about biases and mental issues, and it seems you wrote that to prove a point which is - TF works! here's why! don't buy&hold. ok, BUT.
3. yours and faiths books (Wot and TCTT) are different. you're telling a detailed story (the politics of asset allocation the recruitment etc.), and to make it understandable for lay(ish) readers you explain briefly the method with general examples.
his, is the other way around. it's a technical guidebook for TF (explaining different kinds of setups and exits - and not just the originals (such as ATR breakouts, MAs), position sizing, diversification, curve fitting & backtesting) and in the midst of that, there's his personal story (the truth of which, isn't meaningful for the rest of the book). OK - you emphasize greatly on the mental side of TF - which is why he wasn't successful later on, but you can read "you have to think successful to be successful" in many other books not even about trading (new age included).
4. there are some discrepancies between WoT and TCTT and the original rules. such as - how many units they traded per market? what's loaded? the rules state 4, you say 5.
- what was the portfolio management/diversification method?- the original rules state 6 units in closely correlated, 10 in not correlated and 12 long/short overall, faith mentions this, you mention that bill taught them how to calculate (long-short/2 or the other way around) and that's it.
- pyramiding - both faith and the original rules state pyramiding every 0.5N - you say it was every 1N to keep the 2% risk (before the memo)

to sum up - yours are more fitted to the general public as a review of TF (TF) or as the story behind the turtles (TCTT) but his is more fitted to traders looking to expand their toolbox.

cheers

 

[mcovel]

there are some discrepancies between WoT and TCTT and the original rules.

In researching my book other Turtles stated that Faith was either using or allowed to use other rules not privy to other Turtles. Here is an excerpt from my book "The Complete TurtleTrader":

However, as long as the risk Faith was taking was within the parameters, this was not considered a big deal. DiMaria was quick to correct that view: “No, not within the parameters. That was sort of the standing joke. There were parameters and then there were Curtis parameters. He just got to do whatever he wanted. It’s as if the whole thing was decided on ‘who knows what?’ criteria. Who were going to be the good traders and who weren’t? And returns be damned. It was totally fundamental. It was, ‘Mike Cavallo, he’s like the smartest guy in the program. We got to give him a lot of money.’ I was at the other end of the spectrum. Maybe because I was a control person and they thought I wasn’t going to be anything.” Mike Cavallo, who viewed the allocation process as a meritocracy, did end up having some questions, too. He thought Dennis was partly awarding trading aggressiveness, placing bigger bets with Turtles he thought were trading better, but even Cavallo could not understand Dennis’s decision- making logic when it came to Faith. He said, “It seemed like Curt was trading too aggressively and too riskily and yet was getting rewarded for it. He was making the most, although probably not on a risk- adjusted basis. So at the time, it was just sort of puzzling. I’m not particularly a jealous person, so I wasn’t too worried about it.” Cavallo knew Dennis had become very successful as a very young man by taking big risks. The implication was that Faith was Dennis’s chosen one. Others said the C&D brain trust were enamored with the fact that Faith was so young. It became increasingly apparent that the whole subject of allocations issues was just an entry into the central sticky issue of the program: favoritism. The disparity began almost out of the gate. There was a heating oil trade only weeks after the Turtles’ initial training in 1984. The Turtles were supposed to be trading much smaller sizes. They were supposed to be trading “one lots” or just one futures contract. Faith apparently traded much larger and made more money than all of the other Turtles. Cavallo thought Faith had exceeded what they were allowed to trade, but he also thought an arguably reckless or “go for the jugular” attitude may have elevated him in Dennis’s eyes. It kept coming across loud and clear from assorted Turtles: Faith’s trading didn’t reflect what they’d been taught. Cavallo, the Harvard MBA, was brutally honest: “It wasn’t at all what we were taught. In fact, you could say it was slightly counter to what we were taught.” Even though Cavallo was making millions and was easily considered a top- grossing Turtle at the time, the fact that Dennis gave more and more money to Faith perplexed him. Cavallo had no ax to grind in talking about Faith. In fact, years later he served on the board of directors of a firm Faith had started. Why was Cavallo concerned about Faith’s style of trading? He worried that Faith was risking so much that he could ultimately be ruined (as in mathematical risk of ruin). From that first day of class Eckhardt had pressed home the point of managing risk, but many Turtles saw it almost immediately being ignored by one of their own. DiMaria, who was only eighteen months older than Faith, saw everyone playing by the rules during the program except Faith. He said, “That would go to position sizing, markets traded . . . he was the special boy wonder. So he could do things that the rest of us couldn’t. He probably doesn’t realize that. Did he have special rules ahead of the game, or did he change the game and then ask if those new rules were okay?”

When readers read chapters 7, 12 and the Afterword of my book on the Turtles there are very clear reasons why there may be "discrepancies".