Best of TTU – Why Trend Following Is Not A Black Box

Often, a Trend following strategy is described as being a 'Black Box', as if something bad was going on.  So it was refreshing to hear Scott Foster talk about Trend Following as being in fact, a 'White Box', or a 'Transparent Box', in comparison to other algorithmic strategies, which are often embraced by investors to a much larger degree... so I’m delighted to share this blog post with you, from a conversation I had with Scott Foster, where he also touched on the essential question: Why are there trends, and why ought there be trends in the future?If you would like to listen to the full conversation just go to Top Traders Unplugged Episode 27 and Episode 28.
Will Trends Always Exist In The Market?
Niels:  But that was a very important explanation and it ties into so many other things and want to go further than this but I want to actually ask you a question that actually doesn't relate to short-term trading, but it's my kind of trying to understand what it is you are saying and putting it into a slightly different perspective and that relates to more generally speaking about trend following because, obviously, as we know, you mentioned 1994 and I remember seeing all the great guys sitting lined up at a conference in Chicago and talking about a very difficult period, but they were convinced that this was just a difficult period and things would come back. But let me ask you this, trends in markets in general, not necessarily short term, but just generally, is that kind of based on universal truth, because at the end of the day trends reflect human behavior and human behavior will never change, and what we are seeing now then, where perhaps there have been a lack of trends for a period of time is just part of a normal cycle.

Scott:  Absolutely. I often express my- I won't say unhappiness, but, I think trend followers could do a much better job of explaining what they're doing. Everybody seems to want to be a scientist. There's nothing wrong with that it's just that...I gave a talk a few years ago in Monaco on this about the difference between what we would call black box and what I would call white box. I was trying to make a differentiation between some forms of systematic trading and some forms of systematic/algorithmic trading and the fact that the best majority of people outside, they're in the alternative industry and won't invest in systematic strategy because they don't feel like they have the expertise to understand them or the mathematical skills to, and I was trying to make a case that, well, as it pertains to the vast majority of managed futures, they're not black box, and the reason being is what are they going after? I tried to make a case that they're going after a universal. When you ask a trend follower why do you make money? If they start talking about formulas and all of this type of stuff, the question is (really the only way they can make money is if there are trends)...the question is why are there trends and why ought there to be trends in the future? A trend follower asked, how are you going to make money in the future? I think they should respond because trends cannot not exist.

'If a Trend Follower is asked, how are you going to make money in the future? I think they should respond: 'because Trends cannot not exist.''

What exactly in particular does that mean? Well, it's what you said, it's the fact that at least in a free society, markets exist to create efficiencies for the greater good and if the price of wheat...if we start running out of wheat, the price has to go higher...it has to ration the remaining supply, it has to ration the remaining demand, it has to increase the supply. It has to incentivize people to plant more wheat because we are running out of it and if we didn't have... futures markets were created for that purpose, and without them the prices of food would be fluctuating all over the place. At the end of the day,