Living with Trend Following: Lessons From the Past 25 Years

The path ahead is unclear – shaped by fiscal, monetary, political, and geopolitical challenges. But the future is always unpredictable. When change is the only constant, history shows that adaptability, agility, and resiliency are the qualities that help strategies navigate uncertainty best. Trend following is one such strategy, deeply rooted in history and distinguished by these very attributes. In this piece we aim to provide a granular insight into what it is like to ‘live with a CTA allocation’. Given CTAs’ challenging performance in H1 2025, it’s easy to question whether the current Trump 2.0 tariff shock is simply too complex to navigate. But instead of jumping to conclusions, we wanted to offer some reassuring context – born out of our experience and reliant on some enduring fundamental features of trend following strategies.