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Michael Covel's Trend Following

Ep. 208: Ed Seykota Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Michael Covel's Trend Following

Michael Covel

Investing, Business

4.6730 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2014

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Ed Seykota, a commodities trader, who earned S.B. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT and Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, both in 1969. In 1970 he pioneered Systems trading by using early punched card computers to test ideas on trading the markets.

The topic is his book Govopoly in the 39th Day.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

  • Trend Following
  • Seykota’s concerns about our economy
  • The assimilation model and how Seykota sees assimilation happening today
  • The definition of “govopoly”
  • How Seykota’s mentor’s work plays into Seykota’s work today
  • Thinking about systems
  • What we can do to “fix” the economy, or to at least prepare yourself
  • The exponential curve that assimilation takes
  • Noticing things before they’re important
  • Why Seykota doesn’t provide a “solution” to the problem and instead advocates for the system to correct itself
  • What we can do as people in response to the system
  • Detroit as a microcosm of the US
  • Ways to make money during the assimilation

Jump in!

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I’m MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I’m proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show.

To start? I’d like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/

You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/

Can’t get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast

My social media platforms:
Twitter: @covel
Facebook: @trendfollowing
LinkedIn: @covel
Instagram: @mikecovel

Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Trend Following Radio, where great thinking comes alive.

0:10.9

Nobel Prize winners, legendary traders, bestselling authors, and the pros that know what drive us irrational human beings.

0:21.2

I am your host, Michael Covel.

0:24.0

Not filtered, raw, honest.

0:27.3

That's my passion.

0:33.4

Today in the show I have Ed Sikoda.

0:36.2

Ed was famously first featured in the original Market Wizards book.

0:40.1

He was also featured in my book, Trend Following.

0:42.5

I consider Ed a friend and a mentor.

0:45.7

He has educated me greatly over the years.

0:48.9

I always welcome his wisdom.

0:51.7

Today comes something a little different, though.

0:55.5

Ed has a new book out called Govopoly.

0:58.3

It's worth checking out.

1:00.2

Our conversation today gets into a tiny bit of trend following, but it's mostly about

1:04.9

his new book.

1:06.7

And like anything Ed does, it's coming at it from a different perspective.

1:12.2

I hope you enjoy.

1:20.3

You're pretty well known for being a very successful trader.

1:25.6

And you've now gone ahead and put a book together called Govopoli that I think is going to surprise people.

1:33.6

It's a little bit different.

1:34.9

So what inspired you?

...

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