“Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions” by Gerd Gigerenzer is one of Michael’s favorite books from the last 10 years. Today, Michael reaches into the archives and plays an interview with Gerd Gigerenzer.

Gerd is a psychologist who studies the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making and investigates how humans make inferences about their world with limited time and knowledge. He is director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Daniel Kahneman vs. Gigerenzer’s views
Heuristics vs. statistics
Medical check-ups
Taking risks
Instincts vs. expert advice
Relative vs. absolute risk
Benjamin Franklin’s ledger
Heuristics
Unconscious intelligence

Jeffrey Miron is an economist, served as chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University, currently teaches economics at Harvard University, and holds the position of Director of Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

Jeffrey came to be a libertarian from an economics standpoint rather than philosophical, with Milton Friedman at the helm of his influencers. What got Jeffrey heading down the liberty path? Economics teaches that there are unexpected consequences with interventions. Jeffrey randomly started working on drug legalization in college and came to the conclusion that ramifications of outlawing anything would apply to all markets whether it be guns or drugs.

America spends about 50 billion a year as a country to fight drug laws- couple that with missing out on 50 billion a year in taxes if drugs were legalized and one can see the economic missteps. In addition, studies show there would be a decrease in crime, corruption and less interruption of people being able to use drugs medicinally with drug legalization. Michael and Jeffrey not only touch on the economics of libertarianism in America, but around the world.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Cato Institute
Libertarianism
Bootleggers
Ramifications of drug prohibition
Modern Chinese commerce
Ripple effect of bankruptcy
Bernie Sanders campaign
Donald Trump campaign

A Peaceful Easy Feeling with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Mark Blyth is a political scientist from Scotland and a professor of international political economy at Brown University.

What influenced Mark early on? John Maynard Keynes was his foundation. He also was growing up through the permanent recessions of the 1980’s and learning first hand about pitfalls in the economy. He quickly saw how the macro economy was so much different than the micro and how studying the economy as a whole was more important than just looking at the individual.

Mark called the Donald Trump win for Presidency in June of 2016. Why? Trump was willing to acknowledge there was a problem. He was dramatically different and played to the individual rather than big business. In 2015 Wall Street bonuses were twice the amount of the total wages of people earning minimum wage. Since that 2015 statistic, the inequality has only gotten greater. Trump gave people hope that things can change – that he could change them.

What are some macro steps that can get the U.S. economy heading in the right direction today? Dissolve monopolies and raise corporate taxes creating long-term productivity gains. Because of tax ride-offs a monopolized economy has been created. The government has allowed and engineered large businesses to run America and it’s time to re-arrange the model. Another problem? Americans have become dependent on passive investing and don’t know what to do when volatility happens. They have become blind to risk, due to lack of volatility for the last 10 years. Michael and Mark end on the question: “Can the economy sustain the next 10 years like this?”

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Trump campaign
Raising interest rates
Tax cuts
Infrastructure
General data protection regulation
Black swans
Passive investing
Efficient market hypothesis

Markets and Profit with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio.

Jerry Muller is a professor of history at The Catholic University of America, where he has taught since 1984. His latest book is “The Tyranny of Metrics.” Quantifying metrics can be a good thing, however, it can easily go too far and have great consequences.

Jerry sees pitfalls of focusing too much on metrics everywhere – schools, hospitals, even venture capital. Children gear their learning toward beating a test rather than intellectually developing their mind. Doctors fixate on standardized performance measures, rewards and punishment, and publicized accountability. The system encourages and sometimes requires doctors to game the system. Venture capitalism, the very field where creativity should prosper, tends to foster an anti-creative atmosphere. Investors want to see data to back up a new product so they can see proof of a future profit. The problem? New innovations don’t have data because they have never been seen before in the marketplace.

Using metrics in schools, hospitals, and business can be extremely useful depending on what context it is used, but alone they are not enough. Human development as well as human experience should be weaved into the equation. Michael and Jerry finish the podcast up talking metrics in China, how it has lead to gaming the system and taken a toll on developing research.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Intrinsic motivation
Tyranny of metrics
Metric fixation
Metrics in law enforcement
Metrics in health industry
Managerial ideology
Powerpoint presentations
Metrics in China

Michael plays three epic interviews with Ed Seykota, Martin Lueck and Jean-Philippe Bouchaud profiled in chapter’s 12, 13 and 14 of his newest edition of Trend Following: How to Make a Fortune in Bull, Bear and Black Swan Markets.

Ed Seykota was originally profiled in the classic book “The Market Wizards.” Seykota has played a pivotal role in the growth of trend following trading for 40 years.

Martin Lueck holds an M.A. in Physics from Oxford University and currently is the Research Director and President of Aspect Capital. Lueck was originally with Adam, Harding and Lueck Limited (AHL), which he co-founded with Michael Adam and David Harding.

Jean-Philippe Bouchaud is founder and Chairman of Capital Fund Management (CFM) and professor of physics at École polytechnique.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Govopoly
Systems trading
Diversification
Behavioral economics
Death of trend following
Exploiting vs. exploring
Behavioral biases
Risk

Christopher Ryan is best known for co-authoring “Sex at Dawn.” The book deals with the evolution of monogamy in humans and human mating systems. In opposition to what the authors see as the “standard narrative” of human sexual evolution, they contend that having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.

What was the start of Christopher going doing his path? One of the more pivotal moments was when he was an undergraduate in college. He was able to skip his junior year of college and subsequently hitchhiked to Alaska. Before that journey to Alaska, he thought the world was a dangerous place. Once he got outside his bubble and met strangers, he learned how kind and generous people were. It shifted the way he thought about life and the world.

After graduating he spent his 20’s and 30’s backpacking through Asia and South America. His a-ha moment was realizing that most of what he was told about the world was bullshit. Governments have an agenda and prop up their society to make other places seem less superior. Christopher quickly saw that the cultural message telling us that it’s a “dog eat dog world” was not true.

There are different attributes that everyone shares. What is universal? What do we all share? Consciousness, sexuality, comedy, etc. these are all things that translate across cultures and continents. Learning about these things is what excites Christopher and why he continues to learn, study and teach.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Monogamy
Hunter and gatherer society
Agricultural revolution
Culture of women sexuality
Sexual transmitted disease
War on masturbation
Social groups

Michael shares the Preface and Chapter One of his book, “The Complete TurtleTrader.” “The Complete TurtleTrader” is a classic nature vs. nurture story starring famed traders Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt. Are people born with the innate ability to trade? Or can it be taught? Dennis believed that anyone could be taught to trade successful with the right set of rules, Eckhardt disagreed – and from there this epic experiment was born. These men took 23 novice traders, gave them millions and taught them how to be successful on Wall Street.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

Nature vs. Nurture
Efficient markets
Beating the market
Systems trading
Behavioral finance