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Michael Covel's Trend Following

Ep. 211: John Bollinger Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Michael Covel's Trend Following

Michael Covel

Investing, Business

4.6730 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2014

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is John Bollinger, an American author, financial analyst, contributor to the field of technical analysis and the developer of Bollinger Bands. Since 1987, he has published the Capital Growth Letter, a newsletter which provides technical analysis of the financial markets.

The topic is Trend Following.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

  • Bollinger Bands as described for the lay person
  • Defining when a price is relatively high or relatively low
  • Defining “relatively high” and “relatively low”
  • Measuring volatility to determine the “width” of a Bollinger Band
  • Standard deviation
  • The beginnings of Bollinger Bands, and how John Bollinger came to put it together
  • Different ideas about volatility in the 1980s
  • Some of Bollinger’s early curiosity triggers, and why he started digging into finance after going to art school
  • Light, film, and Bollinger’s experience at the School of Visual Arts
  • Bollinger’s experience in his apprenticeship to learn technical analysis
  • “The best authority is the price itself”, and why this statement isn’t very well accepted in the mainstream
  • Differences between fundamental and technical analysts
  • Bollinger’s look at media and the presentation of his message over the years
  • Why Bollinger would be known as a quantitative analyst instead of a technician if he started his career now
  • Position sizing
  • Why volatility is the least understood aspect of the market

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.

0:21.1

I am your host, Michael Covel.

0:24.0

Not filtered, raw, honest.

0:27.4

That's my passion.

0:32.8

Today in the podcast, I have John Bollinger,

0:36.9

the John Bollinger of Bollinger band fame.

0:41.6

One of the technical indicators that just about everyone has heard of or known about, even if they don't know much about it.

0:51.7

John has been popularizing price-based indicators, often with his name, since the early

1:01.0

1980s. I look forward to this conversation, and I hope you enjoy.

1:16.6

Yes, this is Mike Coval. I'm supposed to be speaking with John this morning for an interview.

1:25.5

This is he? Hey, John. Mike Covel, how are you? I'm well and yourself? I'm not too bad. I'm not too bad.

1:29.9

Having walked in the same circles for many years, I don't believe we've actually ever met.

1:32.0

No, I don't think so.

1:42.3

And I'm actually surprised at my inattentativeness to miss out and do a bunch of podcast episodes and not asked you already to begin with.

1:45.8

So I...

1:46.7

No problem.

1:48.8

I saw you come up on Facebook and I was like, oh my gosh, hold on.

1:52.1

We're connecting on Facebook.

1:53.1

What's going on here?

1:53.9

Why have I not asked John?

1:55.9

I don't know.

...

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