#020 – Tom Basso: Trend Following Mindset

Just Keep Buying - that's what Nick Maggiulli suggests when it comes to investing in his book. And it's an excellent book because it treats investing straightforwardly and practically. Using hard data, Nick debunks myths in personal finance and investing. He answers questions, presents solutions, and gives effective ways to build wealth.https://systemtrader.show/028

Shrouded in mystery and even more misunderstanding, hedge funds have always been very limited for the average investor. Whether for regulatory reasons or because of high capital requirements. But with the revolution started by ETFs, they are now available to the masses.Today, with literally a few dozen dollars in your pocket, you can invest in the same things as hedge funds.The hedge fund industry is burdened with one big sin: high management costs – just like in classic investment funds.This is probably the main source of their numerous failures. But something has been changing here for years, paradoxically partly thanks to the ongoing passive revolution (i.e.: index products). Management costs are falling, and according to Morningstar, the current average management cost among hedge funds is approximately 1.6% per year. Yes – it is still a lot if compared to passive stock ETFs, where the cost may be lower than 0.1% per year.For several years, strategies implemented by hedge funds in the ETF package have been beginning to appear – the so-called managed futures ETFs. Here, management costs dropped below 1% per year.Today, I invite you to an interview with Andrew Beer – a man with 30 years of experience in the hedge fund industry. Some people even call him the “John Bogle of hedge funds” because he offers a very cheap (for this class of strategy) ETF.For more please visit: https://systemtrader.show/027

When we are talking about a strategy in investing, it is often perceived as a mechanism for generating a buy signal. In fact, this is not the most critical aspect in the entire investment process. Today I am pleased to invite you to an interview I had with Tom Basso - a practitioner with almost 50 years of market experience. He is a well-known person in the industry, especially if someone is interested in trend-following strategies.In the background of our discussion is Tom's latest book, The All-Weather Trader.In addition to discussing the strategies used by Tom, we talk about passive investing. Tom is not a fan of this approach, so I ask why.

John "Jack" Bogle revolutionized the investment industry by opening the first index fund in 1976 to replicate the S&P 500 index. It was not easy to sell the idea of a fund generating average market results. But Bogle has shown that by lowering costs he can outperform actively managed funds.Eric Balchunas, author of the fantastic book titled "The Bogle Effect. How John Bogle and Vanguard Turned Wall Street Inside Out and Saved Investors Trillions" is my podcast guest today. It's a semi-documentary book with numerous interviews by Eric, including Jack Bogle and even Warren Buffett. The book described the genesis of a great revolution in the financial world - the passive revolution.

Paul Merriman, my today's guest, is a worldwide recognized authority on index investing, asset allocation, buy-and-hold, and active management strategies. Paul began his career in the 1960s, working briefly as a broker for a major Wall Street firm. He concluded that Wall Street was burdened with too many conflicts of interest and decided to help small companies raise venture capital. He retired in 1982 to create his independent investment management firm.Now retired from his company, he is dedicated to educating investors. In 2013 he created The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, dedicated to providing comprehensive financial education to investors, with information and tools to make informed decisions in their own best interest and successfully implement their retirement savings program.Over the years, Paul has written many articles and books on investing. Paul's weekly podcast, "Sound Investing" was named the best money podcast by Money magazine.Please visit systemtrader.show/024, where 24 is the number of this episode. There you will find additional materials in the form of links.In addition, I invite you to the website systemtrader.show/shop because only now, until the end of November, you can buy my System Trader software at a very attractive price. You can use it to build your ETF or stocks portfolio, backtest it for up to 100 years, and follow it! Evidence-based, not story-based decisions.

Recently, I got an email encouraging me to sign up for a webinar to learn how to earn 1-4% per day. Imagine! Of course, there was an expensive car in the background. 🤦‍♂️A "modest" 1% (instead of 4%) a day out of the starting $10,000 after three years grows to $17 million! And someone wants to teach such a great strategy for money instead of using it themself? If you believe in such methods, then there is no point in listening to this episode any further.If you are looking for quick and easy money on the market, do not expect miracles because you will likely be disappointed.My mission is to show how to invest using reliable and proven methods. There is no magic here.A healthy home budget and regular wise investing of surpluses is almost a guarantee of financial success LONG TERM. It won't be three years, it won't be so sexy, but it will be REAL.You can then retire earlier than most of the population. What's more: you gain financial freedom.I invite you to this episode which comes from the LIVE session during which I presented an introduction to ETF investing.Even if you are a complete beginner, everything will be easier after this material.

There are arguments in favor of traditional passive index funds: they offer low fees, liquidity, and broad diversification. They match market performance, have negligible trading costs and tracking error, and they beat most active managers most of the time. On the other side, there are also factor strategies gaining popularity for a reason: they are transparent, offer exposure to widely agreed-upon sources of expected return, have low management costs, and, with proper design, reasonable transaction costs. In this episode, I am honored to speak to Vitali Kalesnika, a recognized expert in factor investing. He's a partner and Director of Research at Research Affiliates. Vitali explains the details related to factor investing. You will learn, among other things, what it is, what the associated risks are, and how to properly use them in practice.For more please visit: https://systemtrader.show/021

Today's guest is Grzegorz Link, who professionally works as a quant for an investment fund. Grzegorz is a physicist by education, which may surprise some. However, the thing is that in building market models, skills such as programming and mathematics are the primary tools, which is the same for contemporary physicists.We raise many interesting issues during the conversation, trying to answer the question - how is it possible that a well-known investment strategy can still be profitable. You will learn about common investment myths, pitfalls, and difficulties awaiting investors.For more please visit: https://systemtrader.show/021

👉 For more please visit: https://systemtrader.show/020I am honored and pleased to host Tom Basso again in the podcast - a legendary trend-following trader. This time, in the background of the conversation, we will be accompanied by the book "Trend Following Mindset," where Larry Hite wrote in the review: "Anyone can make a lot of money without the trend following mindset, but you will never keep it. This mindset is not everything, but it's pretty close. "In this episode, Tom and I discuss many topics related to investing in the market. You will hear about algorithmic investing, psychology's role, and a passive approach to investing in opposition to active. It will also be about why intelligence does not go hand in hand with investment results.

Almost two years ago, I hosted Gary Antonacci, who specializes in investing using momentum anomalies, and that episode was very popular among listeners. Partly due to the fact that such investment model can be straightforward, and in a way, because it is also not very time-consuming. Which, for the sake of clarity, doesn't mean that the investment process itself is mentally simple. Today I am pleased to host Gary again, but we are talking about an approach to investing that is at the opposite extreme of the momentum anomaly. While momentum takes advantage of long-term trends, today, Gary will tell us how to take advantage of short-term, counter-trend market anomalies in a situation where the market is extremely overbought or oversold.