The Trend Following Bible: How Professional Traders Compound Wealth and Manage Risk

CHAPTER 10

My Trading Journal

To give you the full realistic picture of trend following, I am including my proprietary trading results in a diary fashion. I do not trade that often. A good trading day is a day in which I do not put on a trade. On average in both models I only trade 100 times a year. This keeps my slippage and commissions to a minimum. My trading programs are systematic without any discretion used and tested over the years. Prior to the fall of 2009 I primarily had one account and all of my trading programs were put in this one account. I decided to segregate my trading in order to build my proprietary track record. Even though I have been trading the same methodologies over the years, I have added filters based on my experiences and mistakes. I was not searching for the holy grail; rather, I have added risk filters over the years.

I have been trading in real time two models that are very close to being identical in the rules and thought processes of the trading plan I have presented above. These trading programs are based on unit sizes.

One unit is based on an account size of $150,000 Global Diversified and the other account size is $ 300,000 Diversified. Both accounts trade the liquid futures markets. I believe when we trade the futures markets we trade and make ourselves available for every aspect of our human existence. What I mean by this is, we wake up in the morning. We eat cereal, wheat. We drink coffee. We get dressed, cotton. We get in our cars to go to ...