I have nothing in common with a person who thinks it’s a good idea to hold on to META, for example, through a -70% decline because “it’s still a good company” or “I believe in Zuck!”. I’m OK with giving back some profits and sitting through a little bit of pain, but -70%? No. That’s bad business. No one can survive in this game letting small losses become big losses. No can survive disrespecting the trend.
Now, I’m not interested in going scorched earth to make people view the markets how I do. Nor do I market my fund to every person that has investable assets. It makes for a life of telling people what they want to hear and “let’s go over this again”. Not for me. What I am interested in is working with people who love trend-following as much as I do. I’m not interested in converting the masses. Give me the 10% that love it.
Making money in the markets is tough, even tougher without a ruthless commitment to long-term discipline. Committing only when profits are good inevitably results in pain. Sadly, this is the case with many investing operations where the focus is mainly on chasing fads and making predictions. It sells very well, but it’s typically much more lucrative for the manager than the investors in the long run. Again, not for me.
Trend-following is a particular taste. It’s counter-cultural. It’s anti-fundamentals and buy-and-hold. It’s about adapting without opinions, buying into uptrends and selling into downtrends, not predicting, focusing only on the trend (not stories or fundamentals), letting profits run even when you cannot fully explain the moves and being wrong more often than you’re right.
Sound like fun? Good. We’ll get along great.