Formal Name: Federal Republic of Germany
Local Name: Deutschland
Local Formal Name: Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Trend Following Investment Research
Trend Following Investment Research is a publisher of trend following trading strategies reaching thousands of investors globally. Our unique edge is an extensive network within trend following, behavioral economics and risk management. This allows us to teach decades of outstanding performance. Our approach is to provide customers with a single product requiring no extra purchase. Delivering a comprehensive service of trading systems, risk management strategies and psychological guidelines allows our customers to trade in less than thirty minutes per day. Giving us your money is giving us your trust. And our goal is always to make sure that what we give you is more valuable than what you give us. That straightforward business principle is the foundation of our long-term relationship with all clients.
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Germany and Systematic Trading
Germany is the largest economy in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. Frankfurt is home to the Deutsche Boerse and Eurex, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges. Eurex lists the DAX futures, Bund futures (German government bonds), and Euro Stoxx futures, three of the most liquid and trend-friendly instruments available to systematic traders globally. Each of these markets is directly accessible to retail and institutional traders worldwide and represents a core component of any diversified global trend following portfolio.
The DAX, Germany’s benchmark equity index, is heavily weighted toward global exporters in automotive, chemical, and industrial sectors. Its performance is consequently sensitive to global trade flows, Chinese demand, and the euro’s exchange rate. These external sensitivities produce the kind of sustained macro-driven price trends that systematic approaches capture. When global industrial activity expands, the DAX trends. When trade conditions deteriorate, the DAX trends in the other direction. The same rules that work on S&P 500 futures work on DAX futures.
The Bund future is the benchmark European fixed income instrument. Its price trends are driven by ECB monetary policy cycles, German inflation dynamics, and European sovereign risk perceptions. The Bund has produced some of the most sustained price trends available in any futures market, including the multi-decade bull market in German government bonds that accompanied the post-reunification era and the deflationary decade of the 2010s. Systematic trend following captured the duration of these moves by holding Bund long positions through the full extent of each cycle rather than exiting at arbitrary price targets.
For German traders and investors, systematic trend following on global futures markets addresses a specific domestic portfolio construction problem. German retail investors have historically held concentrated allocations in domestic savings products, real estate, and Bundesanleihen (federal bonds). Global systematic approaches that trade equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities across all major regions provide genuine diversification from German domestic market conditions and from euro concentration risk.
Germany’s engineering and mathematics tradition has contributed to the quantitative finance community across Europe. German universities and research institutes have produced generations of quantitative analysts who apply systematic methods to financial markets. The domestic culture of systematic and engineering-based problem solving aligns naturally with the systematic, rules-based approach to trading that trend following represents.
Frequently Asked Questions
What German markets are most relevant for systematic trend following?
The three most relevant are DAX futures (German equity index), Bund futures (10-year German government bonds), and Euro Stoxx 50 futures (pan-European equity index), all traded on Eurex in Frankfurt. Each is highly liquid, directly accessible to global traders, and historically has produced the sustained directional moves that systematic trend following is designed to capture. All three are core components of most diversified global systematic trading portfolios.
Why is the Bund future particularly important for trend following?
Because German government bond markets have historically produced some of the most sustained price trends in global fixed income, driven by ECB monetary policy cycles that persist for years rather than months. The multi-decade bull market in European bonds, and the subsequent reversal when ECB policy shifted, each produced extended directional moves that systematic approaches held through their full duration. The Bund’s liquidity, tight spreads, and clear policy-driven trends make it a core instrument in systematic approaches globally.
How does Germany’s economic structure influence global commodity trends?
As the largest industrial economy in Europe, Germany’s automotive, chemical, and machinery sectors are major consumers of copper, aluminum, steel, and energy. Changes in German industrial output translate into commodity demand signals that affect global futures prices. A systematic trend follower who reads copper or aluminum price trends is capturing the same macro dynamics that German industrial production drives, regardless of whether they specifically analyze German manufacturing data.
Trend Following Systems
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