179: Effective techniques to identify trends – Doc Ahrens

In this episode of Better System Trader, Andrew Swanscott interviews Doc Ahrens, Director of Research at Trendline Dynamics, about trend analysis and systematic trading. Doc shares his background, including his early experiences in the stock market and his development of the Macro Trend Analyzer (MTA), which uses moving averages on weekly data to identify long-term trends suitable for retirement accounts. He discusses the importance of simplicity in trading systems, the limitations of technical indicators, and the challenges of programmatically identifying trendlines. Doc also touches on psychological and historical support and resistance levels, and emphasizes the need for persistence in trading research, referencing his 25-year endeavor to develop a trailing stop indicator. He offers listeners access to his weekly market analysis and presentation notes via email.