Episode 014: Inside the Loop — Uncertainty in War and the Markets (Part One)

Episode 14: Inside the Loop — Uncertainty in War and the Markets (Part One) Join Rich Brennan, Jerry Parker, Adam Havryliv and Mike Melissinos for a special two-part episode of Turtle Talk, where the trend followers share a room with two Marines for a conversation unlike anything we have done before. https://youtu.be/DdZmMknK2Ag This one breaks our usual format on purpose. A little while back, Rich, Jerry and Mike were invited onto the No Way Out podcast with Mark McGrath and Brian Rivera, and we went in expecting to explain our world to theirs. What we found instead was that we were almost speaking the same language. The way they think about acting under fire, and the way we think about following a trend, kept landing in the same place. So we repaid the favour and brought Mark “Moose” McGrath and Ben Ford onto Turtle Talk to keep the conversation going. Two worlds, one room. Eight strategic ideas drawn from the old military thinkers, walked one at a time, with a single question asked at each: does the answer hold on both sides of the door, for modern warfare and for trend following alike? And running underneath all of it, the one idea the whole special turns on. In war, the Marine has to predict, because nothing tells him where the enemy will be. The trend follower never has to predict, because the price already gives him the crowd’s answer in one live number. Prediction on one side, following on the other. This is Part One. We walk the first four ideas here. Part Two arrives next month. ⚔️ Meet the room Two camps, six voices. On the war side, two Marines. Moose McGrath, of AGLX and the No Way Out podcast, a US Marine and one of the deepest readers of John Boyd you will find. And Ben Ford, a Royal Marines commando turned software builder, formerly of AHL and an Aspect subsidiary, who has taken these military ideas and built them into working code. On the trend following side, Rich Brennan hosting, Jerry Parker, the Lord of classic trend following with four decades and world-class returns behind him, co-host Adam Havryliv bringing the behavioural and cognitive angle, and Mike Melissinos, the punk rocker of trend following, who joined a little later after a proper battle with New York traffic on a Pride March weekend. A nice illustration of the theme before we had even started: the plan meets the world, and the world does not care about the plan. 🔧 Friction: when the plan meets the world Every plan is perfect until it meets reality. Jerry opened with a story from 1992, only a few years into his trading life, when the British general election went the other way to expectations and the Tories under John Major were unexpectedly returned. He drove into the office at three in the morning to liquidate his positions in gilts, short sterling, the FTSE and the pound, and had a quiet word with himself in the dark about what the job actually demands of you. Moose reached for the seminal Marine Corps text, Warfighting, freely available online, and made the point that you could just as easily retitle it as a trend following manual. Ben brought the practitioner’s view from inside the planning process, the part the military calls “actions on,” where after you have built your perfect plan and laid out your assault in the sandpit, the final and most important step is to rehearse what happens when it all goes wrong. Adam tied it back to the mind, and to the mental friction every trader knows: the energy breakout earlier this year that looked flawless on the chart, drew everyone in, and then reversed, and the work of reorienting when reality and expectation come apart. Where the two camps agreed: the plan never survives first contact, so you build for the mess rather than the whiteboard. Where they split: a Marine’s friction is partly a thinking enemy choosing to resist him, while the trader’s friction is a market that does not even know he is there. 🌫️ The Fog: you can never see the whole picture Rich read the old verse, For Want of a Nail, and then unpacked why it really captures uncertainty rather than just illustrating bad luck. The problem was never a lack of information. Everyone could see the nail was missing. The trouble is that no one standing at the blacksmith’s could have traced the line from one missing nail all the way to a fallen kingdom. Each step only makes sense looking backward. Forward, from where you actually stand, the chain is invisible. That, as Rich put it, is the fog. Not darkness, not missing facts, but a future that refuses to assemble into a picture no matter how long you stare. Moose connected it to the interconnectedness and complexity that defines an atmosphere of uncertainty, the reason a Marine has to live in a constant state of reorientation, and noted that the fog is exactly why so many trend following books belong on a Marine’s reading list. Ben offered one of the images of the episode. Think of taking an action as casting a pebble into a pond. The only way to read the result is to watch the ripples, but everyone is throwing pebbles, at different speeds and distances, and all any of us ever receives is the overlapping pattern where those ripples meet. A whole crowd can come to agreement without ever exchanging a word, simply because they are all sitting on the same pond reading the same surface. In markets, that shared surface is the price. Rich made it concrete with the hurricane. The only way to know exactly where it will be in six weeks is to wait six weeks and watch it arrive. There is no formula that skips ahead. The future is not hidden, as if someone knows it and is keeping it secret. It is simply not

Episode 013: The Punk Rocker of Trend Following: Mike Melissinos.

Episode 13: The Punk Rocker of Trend Following: Mike Melissinos, SanDisk’s 40-Bagger & April 2026 Review Join Rich Brennan, Jerry Parker, and Adam Havryliv for Episode 13 of Turtle Talk with a very special guest Mike Melissinos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSw-bgWxgWA This month the three turtles are joined by Mike Melissinos, founder of Melissinos Trading and one of the genuinely uncompromising classic trend followers you can count on one hand. Same system, same rules since 2011, no drift, no compromise, and no watering it down for institutional palatability. Rich and Adam are also fresh back from a few weeks in Malaysia, refreshed and ready, and they have walked straight into one of the wildest months the markets have served up in recent memory. In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Trend Following Indexes, April 2026 April was a month that did everything it could to shake a trend follower loose. Adam broke it down week by week and the picture was almost comical in its violence. Week one brought a tariff shock and a commodity explosion, with oil ripping higher. Week two delivered a ceasefire reversal that sent crude tumbling back down. Week three saw the trend cycle re-engage amid more volatility, and week four closed with the Strait shutting again, a rally in energy, and a fall across the metals complex. A genuine whipsaw from open to close, and yet the systematic universe held up far better than the headlines would suggest. The numbers told the real story. The Classic Trend Index finished April up 6.7%, the highest return against the peer benchmarks we track, and a strong reversal of a slightly negative prior month. The outperformance was not just nominal. It held up on the long term risk adjusted measures too, whether you prefer MAR, Sharpe, Sortino, or any of the other metrics you care to throw at it. Coming into the end of the Australian fiscal year, those are numbers investors can be pleased with, distributions and the tax man notwithstanding. But the single month is a slender statistic, and Rich was quick to steer the conversation toward something deeper. Looking at the VAMI chart, the separation between the Classic Trend Index and the rest of the mob since January 2020 is not narrowing. It is widening. Rich framed this as the shift from what he calls smooth world to rough world. For much of the decade after the global financial crisis, the wider field of managers made a rational commercial decision to smooth their return profiles, trim volatility, and manage drawdowns more tightly in order to look more palatable to institutional investors. The trouble is that you do not get that smoothness for free. You pay for it with your convexity, systematically trimming the very outlier trades that define classic trend following. In smooth world you might get away with it. In rough world, the world of pandemics, inflation shocks, energy crises, and geopolitical fracture, you pay a steep price. And to make matters worse, those smoothed and modest return profiles are now being competed away by cheaper replication products that approximate them at a fraction of the fee. Rich made the case that this dynamic may be accelerating rather than fading. As more and more capital floods into passive equity, pricing becomes less efficient at the single stock and sector level, correlations shift, and the macro trends that systematic traders exploit become more pronounced and more persistent. We may be entering an extended regime rather than enjoying a lucky run, one where staying wide, staying convex, and staying patient generates real geometric wealth for those who hold the line. The classic guys did cop a meaningful drawdown earlier in the year, which Rich calls the price of admission, but they have accelerated back toward their high water marks at pace. As Dave Dredge would put it, this is the racing car with the good brakes, able to mitigate the worst of the volatility and then accelerate hard out of the corner. 👉 Full report: https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-april-2026/ 📈 What’s Moved the Needle Three sets of charts, three different angles on where the opportunity is hiding. Jerry opened with the Australian dollar, one of the strongest currencies on the board, and used it to make a broader point that classic trend followers do not have to pair everything against the almighty dollar. Pair the Aussie against the New Zealand dollar or the Canadian dollar and you get bigger trends, different chart patterns, and a smaller entry ATR on two highly correlated markets, which means a larger position when the correlation finally breaks. He reached back to the 1990s for the perfect illustration: a long German Mark against French Franc position where neither leg did much against the dollar, but the combination became a monster trend because the ATR was tiny and the correlation so tight that it only took a small break to produce an enormous move. The lesson is simple. Do not forget your currency crosses. Mike brought the chart of the episode. SanDisk, up over 4,000% in a year, a genuine 40-bagger and the poster child of the AI storage trade. It came into his universe through a separate strategy he runs that watches the components of the S&P, applies a fixed selection rule, and simply takes equal weight positions in whatever is genuinely the strongest. SanDisk has sat at number one for months. Jerry, predictably, took issue, not with the performance but with the philosophy. His view is that a selection rule that filters markets in and out runs into sample size problems, and that classic trend following demands a fixed universe where you take every single trade. The math gods, as he put it, do not care whether you skipped the cocoa trade because of a clever filter or a failure of discipline. You did not take the trade, and that is all that counts. It made for a lively and good natured stoush, and it set up the deeper conversation about why so many CTAs

Episode 012: Just the Turtles: February Review, Energy Breakouts & Myth Busting

Episode 12: Just the Turtles: February Review, Energy Breakouts & Myth Busting Join Rich Brennan, Jerry Parker, and Adam Havryliv for Episode 12 of Turtle Talk. No guests this month, just the three turtles going deep. https://youtu.be/FCE_VREaXsY In this episode: Battle of the Trend Following Indexes – February 2026 Classic Trend Index up 5.3% for the month, delivering a strong 14.6% over the last quarter and 10.5% year to date. All trend following benchmarks posted positive results in February — a rare show of breadth across the entire systematic universe. The Classic Trend Index continues to separate from the pack, with results that reflect disciplined positioning built up over many months, not a forecast of what comes next. 👉 Full report: https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-february-2026/ What’s Moved the Needle Jerry spotlights aluminium and bean oil — a reminder that the opportunity set for classic trend followers extends well beyond precious metals. Bean oil is outperforming almost everything else in the grain complex, and markets that look correlated on the surface can produce dramatically different moves when the conditions are right. Adam brings the dramatic divergence between European and US natural gas — European gas up close to 100% in a matter of days on localised supply concerns tied to Russia and the Middle East, while US natural gas gave back its gains entirely. Brent crude breaks out above the 200-day moving average and pushes toward $114. A timely discussion on why correlations go out the window when supply chains are under stress — and why that’s an opportunity, not a problem, for those trading enough markets. 🐢 Turtle Tidbits – Deep Dives Two meaty topics from Jerry and Adam: Jerry on Diversification Jerry unpacks a paper arguing that more concentrated portfolios — focused on financials, bonds, currencies and gold — deliver better crisis alpha during stock selloffs. His response: that’s the wrong objective. For classic trend followers, diversification isn’t about lowering volatility or providing crisis alpha protection. It’s about maximising the chance of catching outlier trades. The more markets you trade, the more opportunities you have to be in the right place when the big move comes. Trading fewer, more correlated markets to smooth the equity curve is solving for the wrong thing entirely. Adam on Trend Following vs. Passive Long Equity Equity markets are objectively expensive — the Buffett Indicator, Shiller CAPE, Price-to-Sales, and Yield Curve models are all flashing red. With energy prices exploding and a potential regime shift unfolding in the Middle East, Adam makes the case that the next several years could be very painful for passive index investors and very rewarding for classic trend followers. Drawing parallels to the 1973–74 oil crisis (S&P down 48%) and the 2022 episode, he argues that trend following doesn’t just survive these environments — it profits from the very drivers of the crisis, going long the assets that are appreciating and short the indices and bonds that are falling. And crucially, none of it relies on a forecast. 🔍 Myth Busters Jerry tackles two of the most persistent misconceptions in the trend following space: Myth 1 — Diversification lowers volatility In traditional portfolio construction, that’s the goal. For classic trend followers, it’s a red herring. Diversification exists to give you more chances at outlier trades — not to smooth your returns. Over-focusing on correlation between markets actively cuts your profits short and causes you to miss the very moves that define classic trend performance. Myth 2 — Richard Dennis designed ATR-based dynamic position sizing Dennis used ATR to normalise position sizing on entry — so each trade risked approximately 1% of equity and losses were comparable across markets. Full stop. The idea of continuously resizing positions as volatility changes — to smooth the equity curve and improve Sharpe — came later, from European systematic managers looking to make managed futures more palatable to institutional investors. It sounds like an enhancement, but it achieves the opposite: it systematically reduces exposure to winning trades and eliminates the outliers that are the heart of classic trend following. 📘 The Fractals of Finance Rich’s book is available now on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. Search Fractals of Finance or Rich Brennan. If you’ve read it, a short review on Amazon goes a long way in helping more traders discover it. 👉 Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK 🌐 Episode Resources The Fractals of Finance (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK 📩 Send questions for future episodes: https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact Closing Thought March has thrown a few spanners in the works — metals have come off, equities are wobbling, and energies are moving with high volatility. But one month is a slender statistic. The trends that matter are built over years, not weeks. Stay in your system, keep your pants loose, and let the market do the talking. Stay systematic. Stay patient. And may the trend be with you. 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast! Get the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide If you want to go deeper into the principles behind trend following and build a process that survives real market conditions, the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide is now available on Amazon. This book is a field manual for traders who want to move beyond prediction and commit to disciplined, systematic practice. Written by Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan, it distills decades of experience into a practical and philosophical framework for navigating complex markets. The guide challenges the myths of consistency and control. It explains why markets evolve through trader impact, serial correlation, and emergent structure rather than forecasts. It does not promise a holy grail system. Instead, it teaches the mindset required to capture the rare asymmetric outliers that drive long term performance. If you are ready to trade with clarity, resilience, and conviction, this is the place to start. Click on the image below.

Episode 011: Stocks, FX Arbitrage, Regime Change, and the Return of Classic Trend

Episode 11: FX Arbitrage, Regime Change, and the Return of Classic Trend Join Rich Brennan, Jerry Parker, and Adam Havryliv for Episode 11 of Turtle Talk with special guest Sanjeev Lakhanpal, co-founder of Horizon3 Investment Management. https://youtu.be/D0qsdoinRfI In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Trend Following Indexes – January 2026 All seven trend following benchmarks rallied in unison, with Classic Trend and Barclay BTOP50 sharing the monthly lead at +5.0%. Dispersion compressed to just 1.1 percentage points — a rare show of breadth across the entire systematic universe. Classic Trend Index surpasses 140% cumulative since January 2020 with a 15.5% CAGR, continuing to separate from the pack on the VAMI chart. 👉 Full report: https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-january-2026/   📈 What’s Moved the Needle Metals dominate the conversation as Jerry walks through gold, silver, platinum, palladium and tin — including the brutal end-of-January sell-off and what it means (and doesn’t mean) for long-term trend followers. A passionate debate on vol-weighting vs fixed position sizing, why cutting winners to improve Sharpe is a trap, and why one trade doesn’t define a system built on thousands. Adam brings the Toronto Stock Exchange, cocoa’s dramatic bear trend, and Bitcoin’s breakdown below 80,000. Paul Mulvaney’s extraordinary January (+26%, reportedly up 72% intra-month) sparks a discussion on convexity, pyramiding, and why you can’t replicate his CAGR by simply leveraging a smooth equity curve.   🎙 Spotlight Conversation – Sanjeev Lakhanpal (Horizon3 Investment Management) A deep dive into one of the most unique operators in the systematic space. Sanj explains: His journey from a physics degree to AHL’s trading desk, running billions through the pits with a team averaging 20 years old Working with David Beach — “the greatest trader no one’s ever written a book about” — and the six-year quest to automate his photographic pattern recognition methodology How Digital Signal Processing extracts genuinely diversified signals from price data by analysing the frequency domain Why linear filters throw away turning-point information that non-linear pattern recognition can recover Horizon3’s new FX Swap Arbitrage program: a market-neutral strategy exploiting structural swap rate differentials between brokers, averaging over 2% monthly with no losing months and no losing trades Why the opportunity exists (arbitraging an efficiency, not an inefficiency) and why it won’t be arbitraged away How the arb strategy creates a 20-25% annual return cushion beneath the CTA, transforming the risk profile with a level of certainty research gains can’t normally deliver Contact Sanj: sa**@**im.com | Website: www.h3im.com 📬   Shell Mail – Listener Questions from Lee Two practical questions from a good friend of the podcast: Opposing signals under US FIFO rules — What happens when two systems want to be long and short the same futures contract in a US retail account? Jerry, Sanj, and the team break down why netting at the portfolio level is the cleanest solution, and why it’s actually more efficient than trying to maintain separate positions. Managing multi-currency balances as a global investor — When EM diversification leaves you holding HKD, KRW, SEK, and MYR, what do you do? Convert back to USD? Write an algo? Or follow Adam’s out-of-the-box advice: go live where your profits are.   📘 The Fractals of Finance Rich shares the story behind his new book — a lifetime of searching for certainty in markets, finding trend following, and discovering the deeper geometry beneath it all. The book explores why extreme events are far more common than we’re taught, why traditional models built on normal distributions consistently fail, and why classic trend following isn’t just a strategy — it’s a survival mechanism. With a foreword by Jerry Parker. Available now in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. 👉 Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK   🌐 Episode Resources Battle of the Trend Following Indexes – January 2026 https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-january-2026/ Horizon3 Investment Management www.h3im.com | sa**@**im.com The Fractals of Finance (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK   📩 Send questions for future episodes: https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact   Closing Thought We’re back in a classic CTA environment. The world is fragmenting, purchasing power is eroding, and markets are producing the kind of outlier moves that reward those who stayed positioned. Vol-weighting or loose pants, the debate continues — but the trends don’t care about your method. They care about whether you’re there.   Stay systematic. Stay patient. And may the trend be with you. 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast! Get the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide If you want to go deeper into the principles behind trend following and build a process that survives real market conditions, the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide is now available on Amazon. This book is a field manual for traders who want to move beyond prediction and commit to disciplined, systematic practice. Written by Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan, it distills decades of experience into a practical and philosophical framework for navigating complex markets. The guide challenges the myths of consistency and control. It explains why markets evolve through trader impact, serial correlation, and emergent structure rather than forecasts. It does not promise a holy grail system. Instead, it teaches the mindset required to capture the rare asymmetric outliers that drive long term performance. If you are ready to trade with clarity, resilience, and conviction, this is the place to start. Click on the image below.

Episode 010: Stocks, Outliers, and the Geometry of Trend

Episode 010: Stocks, Outliers, and the Geometry of Trend Join Rich Brennan and Jerry Parker for Episode 10 of Turtle Talk, joined by special guest Cole Wilcox, CIO of Longboard Asset Management. No Adam this month, but a deep, wide-ranging conversation covering classic trend following, equity outliers, diversification myths, and why individual stocks may offer the cleanest expression of trend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcf5-CSrZs In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Trend Following Indexes – December 2025 ReviewClassic Trend continues to separate from the pack, reaching new high-water marks while much of the CTA universe still lags prior peaks. We unpack dispersion, convexity, and why classic designs thrive when genuine trends emerge. 👉 Full report:https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-december-2025/ 📈 What’s Moved the NeedleGold, silver, platinum, palladium, and livestock trends take centre stage as multi-sigma moves remind traders where returns are actually made. The discussion cuts through daily noise to focus on long-horizon positioning, unrealised profits, and why parabolic moves signal fragility, not opportunity. 🎙 Spotlight Conversation – Cole Wilcox (Longboard Asset Management)A deep dive into equity trend following at the individual stock level. Cole explains: Why most stock market returns come from a tiny minority of companies Why indices dilute trend signals How trend following stocks differs structurally from futures-based CTAs Why long-duration trends, not activity, drive compounding The case for absolute momentum over cross-sectional rotation A rare, first-principles discussion on outliers, capitalism, and why trend following belongs inside equities. Learn more about Cole’s work:https://longboardfunds.com/ 📘 Feature Highlight – The Fractals of FinanceRich introduces his latest book, The Fractals of Finance, now available on Amazon, with a foreword by Jerry Parker. The book explores why markets are fractal, why averages mislead, and why trend following works because of structure, not prediction. 👉 Available now on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK 🌐 Episode Resources Battle of the Trend Following Indexes – December 2025https://www.aussieturtles.com/battle-of-the-trend-following-indexes-december-2025/ Longboard Asset Managementhttps://longboardfunds.com/ The Fractals of Finance (Amazon)https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHTH1WNK 📩 Send questions for future episodes:https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact Closing ThoughtMarkets are producing moves no backtest prepared us for. Outliers are no longer rare. Systems matter. Process matters. And survival still comes before prediction. Stay systematic. Stay patient. And may the trend be with you. #TrendFollowing #TurtleTalk #SystematicTrading #AussieTurtles #OutlierHunter #JerryParker #CTAPerformance #MarketStructure #FatTails #RobustSystems 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast! Get the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide If you want to go deeper into the principles behind trend following and build a process that survives real market conditions, the Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide is now available on Amazon. This book is a field manual for traders who want to move beyond prediction and commit to disciplined, systematic practice. Written by Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan, it distills decades of experience into a practical and philosophical framework for navigating complex markets. The guide challenges the myths of consistency and control. It explains why markets evolve through trader impact, serial correlation, and emergent structure rather than forecasts. It does not promise a holy grail system. Instead, it teaches the mindset required to capture the rare asymmetric outliers that drive long term performance. If you are ready to trade with clarity, resilience, and conviction, this is the place to start. Click on the image below.

Episode 009: Outliers, Crises, and the Geometry of Trend

Episode 009: Outliers, Crises, and the Architecture of Trend Following In Episode 009 of Turtle Talk, Rich, Adam, and Jerry return for a year end roundtable on the forces driving modern trend following. From October’s recovery in the trend indexes to the sharp reversals in metals, energy, and livestock, the trio break down how real systems behave when markets shift from calm to rough conditions. It is a focused, data rich session that blends ideas, experience, and plenty of Aussie Turtles® spirit. As our final episode of the year, we wish all our listeners a happy Christmas and a great New Year. See you in January. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNLklLzmzNg This month’s Turtle Talk closes out the year with a deep and data driven roundtable. Rich, Adam, and Jerry return for another no-guest session, unpacking the forces shaping trend following as markets shift from calm conditions into rough and volatile terrain. From October’s steady trend index recovery to the violent swings in metals, energy, and livestock, the trio explore the architecture behind real robustness — convexity, diversification, and the geometry of compounding. Rich brings two extended deep dives, including why outlier hunters win across full cycles and what one hundred and twenty five years of market crises reveal about the true nature of market structure. Jerry walks through the art and necessity of extreme diversification for outlier hunting. Adam wraps with a discussion on why trend following is not a glitch, but a disciplined response to uncertainty and human behaviour. In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Indexes – October’s crawl back into positive territory and why classic trend continues to pull ahead of higher Sharpe peers.📈 What’s Moved the Needle – violent retracements in precious metals, deep reversals in cattle, and cycle high yields in Japan.🐢 Why Outlier Hunters Win Across Full Cycles – calm world versus rough world and the compounding geometry that separates winners from survivors.📉 One Hundred and Twenty Five Years of Crisis – what historic shocks reveal about fat tails, clustering, and why crisis is part of the system.🌍 Diversification for Outlier Hunting – Jerry on why trading more markets, not fewer, is the real edge.💡 Is Trend Following an Infinite Money Glitch? – Adam explains why robustness comes from discipline, not prediction.💬 Shell Mail – listener questions on valuation extremes, fragility, diversification, and staying systematic when markets feel irrational. 🎙️ Expect sharp insights, honest debate, and a year end reminder of why structure, discipline, and process remain the backbone of trend following. 📚 Resources:Aussie Turtles: https://www.aussieturtles.comATS Trading Solutions: https://atstradingsolutions.comClassic Trend Index: https://classictrendindex.comSend your questions: https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact As our final episode of 2025, we want to thank every listener for their support this year. From all of us at Aussie Turtles®, we wish you a happy Christmas and a great New Year. See you in January for the next episode of Turtle Talk. #TrendFollowing #TurtleTalk #SystematicTrading #AussieTurtles #OutlierHunter #JerryParker #CTAPerformance #MarketStructure #FatTails #RobustSystems 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast!

Episode 008: “Pyramids, Outlier Hunting and The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide”

Episode 008: The Myth of Pyramids and The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide In Episode 008 of Turtle Talk, Rich, Adam, and Jerry are back behind the mics for another no-guest roundtable, this time dissecting the dynamics shaping modern trend following. From September’s powerful rebound in the trend indexes to the hidden fragility beneath market calm, the trio explore how compression, diversification, and design discipline define real robustness.  The conversation builds toward the release of The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide, as Jerry turns interviewer to uncover how philosophy, process, and practice come together in the pursuit of outliers. https://youtu.be/5HFXAaImqVE?si=ITKhoVRBd15cPrLO This month’s Turtle Talk stays sharp and streamlined — Rich, Adam, and Jerry return for another no-guest roundtable exploring the forces shaping systematic trend following. From market compression to structural fragility, from diversification to the myth of pyramiding, the trio dig into what really defines robustness and survival in modern trend portfolios. Alongside September’s strong trend index rebound and standout markets, they break down why discipline, patience, and process still trump prediction. In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Indexes – September’s big rebound in classic trend: what’s driving it, and can it last?📉 Compression & Fragility – why calm markets hide risk, and how resilience is built before volatility strikes.📈 Long & Short Balance – Jerry on trading both sides and keeping portfolios anti-fragile.🏗️ The Myth of Pyramids – setting the record straight on the original Turtle rules and why spacing isn’t pyramiding.📘 Spotlight: The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide – Jerry interviews Rich and Adam about the new book, mindset, and the philosophy behind Outlier Hunting.💬 Shell Mail – audience questions on volatility targeting, mandate mixing, and building truly robust systems. 🎙️ Expect sharp insights, honest debate, and timeless lessons as the Aussie Turtles and Jerry strip trend following back to its core: structure, discipline, and survival. 📚 Now Available:The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide — our flagship book of philosophy, process, and practice.🔗 https://www.aussieturtles.com/episode-007-fractals-expectancy-and-survival-2/ Got questions for the pod?🔗 https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact-us/ Catch episode details and more:🌐 https://www.aussieturtles.com/turtle-talk/ #TrendFollowing #TurtleTalk #SystematicTrading #AussieTurtles #OutlierHunter #JerryParker #CTAPerformance #Fractals #MarketCompression #RobustSystems #QuantInvesting 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast!

The Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide

The Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide The Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide is a field manual for traders who want to escape the illusion of prediction and embrace the discipline of process. Written by Adam Havryliv and Richard Brennan, the book distills decades of trading experience into a practical and philosophical framework for surviving and thriving in complex markets.  When Adam and I set out to write The Aussie Turtles® Trend Following Guide, we weren’t trying to add another “how-to” trading book to the shelves. We were building something different: a field manual for outlier hunters. This is the first step in a much bigger journey — one that moves beyond prediction and toward a systematic, durable way of trading where process beats prediction every time. Why This Book? We’ve both spent years walking the path: designing systems, managing funds, enduring drawdowns, and learning that the markets don’t reward clever forecasts. They reward those who can survive long enough to catch the rare, powerful outliers that drive long-term performance. That realization shaped the core of this book. It isn’t a memoir. It isn’t a backtest showcase. And it certainly isn’t a promise of quick success. Instead, it’s a guide to cultivating the one thing every trader needs before anything else: the right mindset. Mindset Before Methods Before you can follow trends, you must unlearn the myths the market sells you: that prediction is possible, that outcomes can be engineered, and that consistency can be manufactured. Our philosophy — and the essence of this book — is simple: You don’t need to be right. You need to be ready. Process outperforms prediction. Persistence, not brilliance, is the true edge. In these pages, we dismantle the illusion of control and replace it with something far more powerful: a rules-based, reaction-driven mindset that thrives in uncertainty. Outlier Hunting: The Bigger Picture This book is just the beginning. It’s the foundation for the larger Aussie Turtles® project — one that will explore system design, portfolio construction, and the craft of catching the trades that truly move the needle. But foundations matter. Without the right philosophy, no system survives. That’s why this guide had to come first. It’s the starting point for anyone serious about walking the path of an Outlier Hunter. Click on the image below to buy your copy in kindle, paperback or hardback from Amazon. Closing thought: This book doesn’t hand you the next holy grail system. It gives you something more useful — the mindset and framework to build your own, survive the storms, and stay in the game long enough to catch the wave you didn’t see coming.

Episode 007: “Fractals, Expectancy, and Survival”

Episode 007: Fractals, Expectancy, and Survival In Episode 007 of Turtle Talk, Rich, Adam, and Jerry return to the mics for a focused roundtable — no guests this time, just the three of them tackling the big themes shaping systematic trend following. From fractals and the inevitability of outliers, to expectancy versus path dependence, to why Jerry swears by the Cut Back Rule (and even loose pants), the conversation cuts straight to the core of survival and edge. They also weigh in on August’s trend index battles, review standout markets from copper to cattle, and debate whether high-volatility trend following might be the most valuable alternative investment today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY3aotrY0v8 This month’s Turtle Talk keeps it tight and focused — Rich, Adam, and Jerry sit down for a no-guest roundtable tackling the big themes driving systematic trend following. From fractals to fat tails, from expectancy to survival, the trio dig into what really matters when hunting for outliers. Alongside August’s trend index battles and standout markets, they explore why robust process, risk discipline, and a willingness to embrace volatility define classic trend success. In this episode: 📊 Battle of the Indexes – August bounce in classic trend, but is the recovery built to last?🔍 Fractals & Outliers – are markets wired for inevitability, and what does maximum diversification really mean?📈 Expectancy vs Path Dependence – why wealth paths matter more than theoretical edges.🎯 The Cut Back Rule – Jerry on why trimming risk is essential for long-term survival.👖 Loose Pants – flexibility as a metaphor for robust trend design.⚡ High-Vol Trend Following – unpacking why it may be the most valuable alternative investment today.💬 Shell Mail – audience questions on diversification sizing, lost decades in trend, and quantifying fat tails. 🎙️ Expect candid debate, sharp insights, and plenty of lessons as the Aussie Turtles and Jerry cut through the noise to the heart of trend following. 📚 Coming Soon:The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide launches next week — our flagship book of philosophy, process, and practice. Stay tuned for the release! Got questions for the pod? Send them in:🔗 https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact-us/ Catch episode details and more at:🌐 https://www.aussieturtles.com/turtle-talk/ #TrendFollowing #TurtleTalk #SystematicTrading #AussieTurtles #OutlierHunter #Fractals #JerryParker #Expectancy #CTAperformance #MomentumEdge #QuantInvesting 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast!

Episode 006: “The NYC Getaway: “Outliers, Diversification, and the Quest for Maximum CAGR”

Episode 006: The NYC Getaway: Outliers, Diversification, and the Quest for Maximum CAGR In Episode 006 of Turtle Talk, Rich and Adam join Jerry Parker in his New York getaway for a special face-to-face session — an unscripted deep dive into outlier hunting, maximum diversification, and the pursuit of true CAGR. Together they unpack the philosophy of classic trend following, challenge the smoothness obsession of modern approaches, and reflect on why wide nets and robust rules are the essence of enduring success. https://youtu.be/QebPl2OdLWI This month’s Turtle Talk is a little different — Rich and Adam join Jerry Parker at his New York getaway for a face-to-face deep dive into the philosophy and practice of outlier hunting. Recorded on Labor Day, the trio reflect on market adventures, harbor cruises, and the heart of classic trend following. In this special episode, we skip the usual segments and go straight to the foundations: 🌍 Maximum Diversification – why spreading the net across hundreds of markets is essential for catching rare outliers. 📉 Volatility vs. Lifting Power – compounding drag, step-ups in equity curves, and why chasing smoothness can backfire. 🎯 Closed Trade Equity & Weak Compounding – why conservative sizing preserves robustness and avoids randomness. 🔍 Dynamic Position Sizing Debate – why selling into strength risks type-two errors and dilutes true outlier returns. 🐂 The Cattle Year – feeder cattle, cocoa, and how small markets often deliver oversized contributions. 💬 Classic vs. Modern Trend – Buffett, Munger, and the tension between concentrated conviction and wide diversification. 🎙️ Expect candid debate, laughs, and plenty of lessons as the Aussie Turtles and Jerry unpack what it really means to maximize CAGR through pure outlier hunting. Coming Soon:The Aussie Turtles Trend Following Guide is nearly here — our flagship book of trend following philosophy, process, and practice. Stay tuned for the release! Got questions for the pod? Send them in: https://www.aussieturtles.com/contact-us/ Catch episode details and more at:https://www.aussieturtles.com/turtle-talk/ #TrendFollowing #TurtleTalk #SystematicTrading #AussieTurtles #OutlierHunter #ClassicTrend #JerryParker #NewYorkCitySpecial #MomentumEdge #QuantInvesting 🎙️ Turtle Talk is here to equip traders and enthusiasts with the tools to succeed in the ever-evolving world of trend following. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast!