SI174: The Future of Trend Following ft. Alan Dunne
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2022
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, Alan Dunne joins us to discuss what the future could look like without central bank liquidity being pumped into the markets, macro versus quantitative trading approaches, how to avoid crowded strategies, some post analysis of a trend following research paper, whether CTAs are being gamed by other participants, analysing the various methods of price trend measurements, what may have caused a more difficult trading environment for Trend Following strategies in the 2010s, and the economic factors that lead to great periods for Trend Following.
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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
In this episode, we discuss:
- What markets could look like without Federal Reserve liquidity injections
- Macro versus quantitative approaches
- Avoiding crowded strategies
- What it was like to trade through 2018
- How market participants may try to game Trend Followers
- Measuring the strength of price trends
- Reviewing the performance of Trend Following during the 2010s
- Which economic factors could drive strong Trend Following performance
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:58 - Feel free to share this podcast with like-minded friends using this link:
https://top-traders-unplugged.captivate.fm/listen
and a big thank you to those who have left a 5-star rating or review on iTunes02:34 - Macro recap from Niels
05:02 - Weekly review of returns
12:22 - Q1: Brett; How do you define a drawdown?
13:48 - Alan, what is your background and path to the CTA industry?
19:32 - Announcement of new Top Traders Unplugged ‘Allocator’ series
20:49 - What inspired you to write your highly-regarded paper on Trend Following?
01:04:08 - Benchmark performance update
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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PLUS: Whenever you're ready... here are 3 ways I can help you in your investment Journey:
1. eBooks that cover key topics that you need to know about
In my eBooks, I put together some key discoveries and things I have learnt during the more than 3 decades I have worked in the Trend Following industry, which I hope you will find useful. Click Here
2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score
One of the things I’m really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here
3. Other Resources that can help you
And if you are hungry for more useful resources from the trend following world...check out some precious resources that I have found over the years to be really valuable. Click Here
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're about to join Jerry Parker, Maritz Siebert, and Neil's Kostrup Larson on their raw and honest journey into the world of systematic investing and learn about the most dependable and consistent yet often overlooked investment strategy. |
| 0:15.1 | Welcome to the Systematic Investor podcast series. |
| 0:21.9 | Welcome or welcome back to this week's edition of this systematic investor series with |
| 0:25.6 | Alan Dunn and I, Niels Castro-Larsen, where each week we take the pulse of the global |
| 0:29.1 | markets through the lens of a rules-based investor. |
| 0:32.1 | If you're new to the show, I hope that today's episode will trigger your curiosity |
| 0:35.9 | enough to check out the back catalog |
| 0:38.1 | and listen to past episodes that you may have missed, like our year-end, three-hour long |
| 0:43.4 | debate where all of the co-hosts of the Systematic Investor series came together to |
| 0:47.7 | debate some of the key topics that are so vital to understand when it comes to rules-based |
| 0:52.5 | investing like trend following so if you |
| 0:54.6 | miss those two episodes I invite you to go back and check it out as you may know the |
| 0:59.6 | aim of the podcast is to inspire you as an investor we want to be prerogative but |
| 1:04.6 | without being polarizing we want to challenge consensus narratives and to |
| 1:08.7 | advocate how to think critically about the investing or |
| 1:12.1 | investing in an uncertain world and to provide you with a framework and a mindset that we believe |
| 1:18.0 | is truly robust. And if you want to help us achieve our goal, what we ask of you is that |
| 1:23.7 | if you can comment, if you can continue to send us your questions, if you can share these episodes and not least, |
| 1:29.3 | if you can rate and review them in iTunes, |
| 1:31.3 | we would greatly appreciate this. |
| 1:33.3 | As this is the way for us to see that you get some value from our time and dedication each week |
| 1:38.3 | to create these episodes and as long as that continues, we will continue to do them. |
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