2025 Has Been a Tough Trading Year, What's Worked?
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This year has been a strange trading year, and the recent AI meltdown is indicating that we're not done yet.
But it's not only been strange, it's been bad.
While there are many ways to trade, trend following is, by far, the most celebrated, studied, and successful trading methodology of all time.
How has trend following done in 2025?
Yikes.
Here's one of my favorite pure trend following firms (Purple Valley Capital). It made 199% in 2020. And this year?
It's getting hammered.
And what's the most transparent, most thorough trend following system out there that we can follow every day? It's 40in20out.com.
How has their pure trend following portfolio done in 2025?
It's underperformed all year.
So, what's worked this year? My Performance Page Portfolio (PPP) is made up of get-in-on-pullbacks strategies as well as one trend following strategy and another trend following breakout strategy on Gold.
Not all of the systems has done well in '25, but the PPP pullback system on the 240-minute chart on the ES has been a monster.
It's had winner after winner this year and is hypothetically up over $23k this year trading one contract each time on at least a $35k account.
If you add up all the PPP strategies (which I update every month on my Performance Page), they've made a hypothetical $33k on a sample $57k account.
Not bad.
What else has worked?
Momentum.
As we've talked about before, what's the easiest way to predict what will work in the future?
What worked in the past.
Things that have grown and beaten the market for years will probably continue to do so.
Is that too simplistic?
Well, here's a portfolio of ETFs that have beaten the market for many years. If we equally-weighted all of them, here's 2025's performance thus far:
As you can see, it's close, but the ETFs that have beaten the market for a long time...are still beating the market.
And there's no trading or rebalancing necessary.
I get emails from people who are looking for simple solutions. I don't know how to make it simpler than that.
And just for comparison, here's how the portfolio has done since 2019 as compared to SPY:
The portfolio has been better than an index fund like SPY since the very beginning.
If you're curious, here's the portfolio:
If you're interested in this type of portfolio or income portfolios or growth + income portfolios, you can always become a member of DIP (Dividend Income Program). Email me for details.
Or you can simply buy and hold things that are better than the market.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Talk to you soon
DISCLAIMER: This is not financial advice.
It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these videos will be profitable or that they will not result in losses. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. Examples presented are for educational purposes only. These set-ups are not solicitations of any order to buy or sell. The authors, the publisher, and all affiliates assume no responsibility for your trading results. There is a high degree of risk in trading. HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN INHERENT LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT ACTUALLY BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER- OR OVER-COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN.
