Ep. 296: Ewan Kirk Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Michael Covel's Trend Following

Michael Covel

Business, Investing

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2014

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Ewan Kirk, the head of Cantab Capital and has brought his firm from $30M AUM in 2006 to over $5B today. Kirk employs several strategies but clearly uses a trend following foundation.

The topic is Trend Following.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

How consistent and predictable profits are the Holy Grail–you're never going to get there
Kirk's background
Why computer programming is "today's literacy"
Standing out from the crowd
Trend following in the European scene vs. America
Weighting positions based on risk
Talking to clients and explaining that losses are statistically inevitable
Whether the demand for discretionary traders is waning
How discretionary traders look at a trader like Kirk who is 100% systematic
Why discretionary intervention in a systematic trading strategy disqualifies it from being truly systematic
Proving a strategy as broken rather than proving that it's right
Why randomness is everything
Uncertainty and convictions about technique
Capturing the realism of the world in your trading strategy
What actually benefits the economy, society, and the world
Seeking client feedback and understanding a client's drivers
The importance of consistent marginal improvements

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.
0:26.6	I am your host, Michael Cobell. Not filtered, raw, honest.
0:37.1	That's my passion. Today in the show I have Ewan Kirk. He's the head of Kahnab Capital in Cambridge, in the UK.
0:40.7	Ewan brings very clear and strong opinions.
0:44.5	I'm sure there's probably a few things that he says in this interview that will be enlightening,
0:50.5	and perhaps a few people will feel like their feathers are ruffled.
0:55.6	But nonetheless, I love it.
0:57.7	What a great story from 2006 to today.
1:02.2	Growing his asset center management from around $30 million to over $5 billion.
1:09.8	Inspiration as well.
1:11.6	UN has seen his net worth climb from not super high to super high.
1:17.3	I think super high, a half billion plus would be quite inspirational.
1:23.2	A trend following trader plus other strategies, but clearly a trend following foundation.
1:30.9	One thing to keep in mind also, September 2014, for all of the last couple years where you'd read these articles, is trend following dead, is trend following dead, trend following's over.
1:45.4	September 2014 comes along and boom.
1:51.7	It's not about consistent profits.
1:54.0	Consistent profits, predictable profits, are the Holy Grail.
1:59.7	You're never going to get there.
2:01.7	Better to have a strategy that takes those small losses and then finds those big months,
2:07.5	those big periods where the world changes, where profits come unexpectedly.
2:14.6	That's trend following.
	...

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