Interview  |  JUN 2005

Interview: Michael W. Covel by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan

Stocks & Commodities V. 23:6 (52-57): Interview: Michael W. Covel by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan The author of Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions In Up Or Down Markets and a researcher of the most successful trend-following investment managers, Michael Covel has been consulting on trend-following to individual traders, hedge funds, and banks for 10 years. Teaching and sharing unique insights about trend-following, trading, and alternative investments has earned him respect as a rational voice in uncertain times. He can be reached at www.michaelcovel.com and www.trendfollowing.com. STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan interviewed Michael Covel via telephone on March 31, 2005. Q: How did you get started in technical analysis? A: What led me to trend-following was curiosity. I was looking at performance data and what all those who played the trends made. Occasionally, I would read an article in STOCKS & COMMODITIES or Futures, but I didn’t find much about these traders and I couldn’t figure out why Main Street and Wall Street weren’t preoccupied with them. How could they not be? If you just look at their performance numbers, you can see how much money they’ve pulled out of the market. So I had this insatiable curiosity to figure out the puzzle. Q: And were you trading the markets at some point? A: We all start out trading, whether it is with a good strategy or a bad one. These days, I keep money with trend-following traders. I also try to maintain a trend-following mindset in other areas of my life, from real estate to starting businesses.

by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan