Ep. 393: Emil van Essen Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio
Michael Covel's Trend Following
Michael Covel
4.6 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2015
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My guest today is Emil van Essen. Michael first heard of Emil from former turtle, Lucy Wyatt. The first thing to note is that he is not a trend following trader. He is a commodity spread trader. Emil has been a CTA since 1997, but his first trading experience was at the early age of 12. Emil delivered papers when he was younger and would take the money and invest in rare coins. The owner of the coin store happened to be a commodity trader. He helped teach Emil about trading commodities and even put in trades for him. Emil's first trading job was in 1986 at the age of 21.
The topic is trading commodity.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:
- Growth of commodity ETFs
- Diversification
- Raising money vs. Making money
- Quality Investors vs. Quantity of Investors
- Beta and Alpha
- Not all investors are created equal
Jump in!
---
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, best-selling authors, and the pros that know what drive us irrational human beings. |
| 0:20.7 | I am your host, Michael Covell, not filtered, raw, honest. |
| 0:26.3 | That's my passion. |
| 0:32.3 | I guess today is Emil van Essen. |
| 0:35.3 | He's a trader. |
| 0:36.1 | He runs a managed futures firm. |
| 0:39.0 | Has been at this game since the late 1990s trading for clients. |
| 0:43.9 | His original trading experience goes back to the mid-1980s. |
| 0:48.6 | Emil is not a trend following trader. |
| 0:52.1 | He is a spread trader. |
| 0:54.7 | While he may bring a different trading perspective than what is normally seen in my world, |
| 1:00.8 | definitely insights for everyone in this episode. |
| 1:06.2 | I hope you enjoy this conversation with Emil Van Essen. |
| 1:20.6 | So I was thinking to the first time I heard your name, and it was actually from one of the famed turtles from Richard Dennis's group. |
| 1:24.6 | And I remember Lucy Wyatt was telling me about you. |
| 1:27.0 | She's like, you got to meet this guy, |
| 1:28.2 | him all. This is probably, I don't know how many years ago, a long time ago, but today we finally |
| 1:33.8 | get a chance. We finally get a chance to meet today after, after her telling me all these years ago |
| 1:39.7 | that we had to connect. This was long before I had a podcast. She was telling me about you. |
| 1:43.5 | But you already had your |
| 1:44.4 | book then, right? Yeah, the book was, oh my gosh, 10 years ago. Wow. Time flies, huh? Super flies. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Covel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Covel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.