In episode 188 we welcome our guest, Andreas Clenow. Meb and Andreas start the conversation with a  hat on what hooked Andreas on trend following, and his book, Following the Trend.

Andreas discusses running trend following as a portfolio strategy, not something that is optimal to run on a single market. He talks about some basic fundamentals of trend following, including the premise that it’s about taking a lot of bets on a large number of markets independently.

Meb then asks Andreas to get into some detail about risk management and position sizing. Andreas defines the way he thinks about risk, and goes back and forth with Meb about the reality of return expectations and compounding. Meb follows by asking what has changed with his approach over the years. Andreas responds with the idea of realizing it’s about strategy and business, and the business has changed a lot.

The conversation transitions into how trend following can fit into an investment portfolio. Andreas offers that the strategy can serve as a core building block of a larger portfolio. He talks about some of the environments where trend following has done particularly well, and the challenge with diversification in equities.

As the conversation winds down, Meb asks about Andreas’ new book, Trading Evolved: Anyone can Build Killer Trading Strategies in Python. Andreas describes the book as a guide for readers to build backtests and strategies in the programming language, Python.

All this and more in episode 188, including Andreas’s most memorable investment.