Investing with the Trend: A Rules-based Approach to Money Management (Bloomberg Financial)

Investing with the Trend provides an abundance of evidence for adapting a rules-based approach to investing by offering something most avoid, and that is to answer the “why” one would do it this way.  It explains the need to try to participate in the good markets and avoid the bad markets, with cash being considered an asset class.  The book is in three primary sections and tries to leave no stone unturned in offering almost 40 years of experience in the markets.

Part I – The focus is on much of the misinformation in modern finance, the inappropriate use of Gaussian statistics, the faulty assumptions with Modern Portfolio Theory, and a host of other examples.  The author attempts to explain each and offer justification for his often strong opinions.

Part II – After a lead chapter on the merits of technical analysis, the author offers detailed research into trend analysis, showing how to identify if a market is trending or not and how to measure it.  Further research involves the concept of Drawdown, which the author adamantly states is a better measure of investor risk than the oft used and terribly wrong use of volatility as determined by standard deviation.