SI234: Trend Followers are minnows, not whales ft. Rob Carver
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2023
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I'm joined by Rob Carver for the weekly trend following conversation, where we reflect on the takeaways from the CTA series and the performance of the year so far. We discuss parameter and markets selection through research and testing and why Rob dislikes stops in moving average systems, what happens if a brokerage firm fails. We also discuss why you have to be cautious when using dynamic position sizing and Rob’s advice for using backtesting, how articles from big financial media often creates a false or skewed narrative in the way they present data and information, why adding a lot of instruments to your portfolio is not as good an idea as it might seem. And finally we discuss Rob's latest article in the Financial Times and much more.
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50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
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Episode TimeStamps:
02:19 - Reflecting on the TTU CTA series
04:57 - Performance update
09:59 - Q1, Gene: Question about underfitting and overfitting
16:47 - Q2, James: What types of stops are commonly used in moving average systems?
18:49 - Q3, Chris: How far back do you go in backtesting?
22:20 - Q4.1, Kyle: What happens if an FCM goes belly up?
26:37 - Q4.2, Kyle: Questions regarding "Following the Trend" by Andreas Clenow
39:22 - Applying a commission rate for your backtest
44:22 - Q5.1, Matthijs: The optimal moment to roll a contract?
46:14 - Q5.2, Matthijs: View on adding a defensive strategy to a multi-strat CTA?
47:52 - Q5.3, Matthijs: Why limit trend following to a small part of your portfolio
49:35 - Rob's article in FT
58:27 - Investor survey from BNP with predictions for 2023
01:00:49 - Diversification across instruments
01:06:49 - Thanks for listening
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
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to join Neil's Kostrup Larson on a raw and honest journey into the world of systematic investing and learn about the most dependable and consistent yet often overlooked investment strategy. |
| 0:13.0 | Welcome to the Systematic Investor Series. |
| 0:25.9 | Welcome and welcome back to this week's edition of the Systematic Investor Series with Rob Carver and I, Neil's Castrolassen, where each week we take the pulse of global market |
| 0:30.4 | through the lens of a rules-based investor. |
| 0:32.9 | If you're new to the show, I hope today's episode will trigger your curiosity enough to check |
| 0:37.4 | out the back catalogue, listen to some of the past episodes that you may have missed, like my |
| 0:42.3 | conversation with Alan last week, where we discussed a couple of new research papers of which |
| 0:47.9 | one was about the footprint of CTAs in the markets, as well as some of the key takeaways from |
| 0:53.7 | our recent conversations with pretty much all of the largest and best CTAs in the markets, as well as some of the key takeaways from our recent conversations with |
| 0:55.1 | pretty much all of the largest and best CTAs in the world, which you can find in the top |
| 1:00.1 | traders on plug series. Also, if you did miss the Wednesday episode, I really would encourage |
| 1:06.2 | you to listen to this midweek conversation with David Dole, where we dive into a new topic that I |
| 1:12.0 | personally find fascinating and which David calls Galactic Macro, and where we try to keep a very |
| 1:18.6 | open mind to all of the recent releases of information from the Pentagon and US military about |
| 1:23.6 | encounters that they have had with unidentified objects, |
| 1:27.8 | but also then try to see if there could be made an investment case for this development, |
| 1:33.5 | hence the new term galactic macro. |
| 1:36.4 | Anyways, I encourage you to listen to as many episodes that you can handle once you finish |
| 1:42.4 | listening to Rob and me today. Anyway, Rob, |
| 1:45.5 | good to be back with you. So much continues to happen between our conversations. How are you doing, |
| 1:51.2 | my friend? Yeah, someone actually messaged me and said, why is it, whenever you go on the podcast, |
| 1:55.8 | you always talk about the weather when Neil's asked how it's going. I'm like, well, I'm English. |
... |
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