Product Description

After 25 years, the Turtles come out of their shells

“I could teach a turtle to trade.”

While sightseeing at a turtle farm, legendary commodities trader Richard Dennis bet Bill Eckhardt that great traders didn't have to be born-they could be taught.

To settle the wager, they recruited 23 individuals from all walks of life, gave them accounts to trade, and trained them for two weeks-hence the Turtle Traders.

The Turtles of 1983 earned more than $100 million in less than four years, becoming part of the most famous experiment in trading history. Dennis had won his bet. But the secret to this success has been a mystery-until now.

Shrouded in secrecy for nearly 25 years, the most successful Turtle Trader of them all breaks the silence, revealing his most lucrative trading strategies-and the Turtle legend

Curtis Faith, who was 19 years old when he joined the Turtles, went on to become the most successful member of the group. For the first time, he explains the wildly successful Turtle system-the rules, timing, risks, and rewards that can deliver enormous profits. Faith also shows you how to use this system in the modern market-including how to select the right trades, smooth out returns, effectively diversify, and know when to exit a winning trade.

“The most successful turtle was apparently Curtis Faith. Trading records show that Mr. Faith, who was only 19 when he started the program, made about $31.5 million in profits for Mr. Dennis.”-Stanley W. Angrist, Wall Street Journal

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7850 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From the Inside Flap
"We're going to raise traders just like they raise turtles in Singapore."

So trading guru Richard Dennis reportedly said to his long-time friend William Eckhardt nearly 25 years ago. What started as a bet about whether great traders were born or made became a legendary trading experiment that, until now, has never been told in its entirety.

Way of the Turtle reveals, for the first time, the reasons for the success of the secretive trading system used by the group known as the "Turtles." Top-earning Turtle Curtis Faith lays bare the entire experiment, explaining how it was possible for Dennis and Eckhardt to recruit 23 ordinary people from all walks of life and train them to be extraordinary traders in just two weeks.

Only nineteen years old at the time - the youngest Turtle by far - Faith traded the largest account, making more than $30 million in just over four years. He takes you behind the scenes of the Turtle selection process and behind closed doors where the Turtles learned the lucrative trading strategies that enabled them to earn an average return of over 80 percent per year and profits of more than $100 million. You'll discover:

• How the Turtles made money-the principles that guided their trading and the step-by-step methods they followed
  
• Why, even though they used the same approach, some Turtles were more successful than others
  
• How to look beyond the rules as the Turtles implemented them to find core strategies that work for any tradable market
  
• How to apply the Turtle Way to your own trades-and in your own life
  
• Ways to diversify your trading and limit your exposure to risk
  

Offering his unique perspective on the experience, Faith explains why The Turtle Way works in modern markets, and shares hard-earned wisdom on taking risks, choosing your own path, and learning from your mistakes.

From the Back Cover

After nearly 25 years, the turtles come out of their shells.

Way of the Turtle takes a never-before-seen look at the legendary Turtle Traders and the famous experiment that made them millions. Curtis Faith, the most successful member of this elite group, breaks the silence to reveal the rules, timing, risks, rewards, and secrets to his biggest trades and 100 percent annual returns. Sharing behind-the-scenes insights and step-by-step techniques, Faith shows how you can use the Turtle Way to achieve enormous profits-whatever your skill level.

“The most successful turtle was apparently Curtis Faith. Trading records show that Mr. Faith, who was only 19 when he started the program, made about $31.5 million in profits for Mr. Dennis.”-Stanley W. Angrist, The Wall Street Journal

About the Author

Curtis M. Faith was the most successful of the Turtles, earning more than $30 million for Richard Dennis while trading as a Turtle. He is one of the industry's leading pioneers of mechanical trading systems and software. Faith is currently head of research and development for Trading Blox, LLC, a company that specializes in software for trading system analysis and development. He also runs an Internet forum for mechanical system traders at tradingblox.com/forum.

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Customer Reviews

Superb How To Book
The Turtles Story is Legendary in Trading Lore.

An open account of how the author was selected for the Turtles, how they did it and what was achieved and the obstacles they came across on route.

The full Turtle System is described, entries, exits, risk management.

Curtis Faith writes simply and describes in clear language what an effective trading system looks like, what its component parts are, with reference to the Turtles system.

There are an excellent couple of chapters on system design and evaluation. How to evaluate, what to expect in real time after your tests. It's clear he has walked the walk. I'll vouch for that from my own trading experience.

They way they made millions is explained carefully; anybody can do it if they follow the rules. But can you?

I've read many trading books, traded actively and this is an excellent book, the best I've read on trading systems. It's easy for anybody to read as a novice and will set you on the correct development path. For those more experienced but not following mechanical rule based systems it's a must.

As an aside there's a small Excel Spreadsheet you can find on the Internet called Risk of Ruin xls. Try working out how much of your available pot (that's when you stop trading due to losses reaching intolerable levels) you currently risk per trade and work out your risk of wipeout and your biggest forecast draw down. Ask yourself what that draw down would mean to you in cash terms and whether you could carry on at that point. It's most illuminating.

Top of the trading book list!
Way Of The Turtle is the first ever credible account of how Richard Dennis's legendary Turtle experiment managed to turn ordinary mortals into successful traders.
Much more than just a story of success, Way of the Turtle explains how Turtle methods were implemented and why, within a framework of outstanding results, some Turtles made lots of money and some lost money.
The reasons for this variation in individual performance are in themselves a fine lesson in trading but there is much more. You may be surprised to learn that many of the things you imagined were vital for success are of small concern. Does a trader know or even care what his next trade will do? Will you be surprised to discover that your system rules are fairly unimportant?
Way of the Turtle gets right down to the essentials of trading - why you must have an edge and how to find it, how to manage risk, avoiding the traps that catch most traders and evading the constant threats to divert you from following your system.
Written by the most successful of all the Turtles, this book must rank at the top of the list of all trading books ever published. You can't afford to wait for your best friend to buy this book for you!

A superb primer
To anyone who has had the pleasure of working with Mr Faith's and Mr Arnold's superb back testing software over the past few years (Trading Blox), the excellence of this book will come as no surprise. Both the book and the software are "must haves" for anyone with an interest in trading or investment. The concentration is on trend following - the Turtles were intermediate term trend followers. The software itself however can be used for testing almost any trading strategy and plans are well in place for a version which uses intra day data.

The lessons to be learned from Mr Faith's book can be applied not only to futures but to shares, ETFs and mutual funds. The premise is that a successful trading or investment strategy need not (perhaps should not) be complex and detailed systems are discussed and back tested results published.

Unlike other offerings on the market, the book is not full of vague waffle. It is specific and to the point and shows you what you need to know to get going along the path of successful trend following. As a bonus, the original and exact Turtle Trading rules are set out in full as an appendix to the book. Better still, the book details a simpler and better Turtle like system, more appropriate perhaps to today's markets.