The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results
Product Description
We read constantly about the men and women who make nine- and ten-figure fortunes in the markets-the Warren Buffetts, Paul Tudor Joneses, and Michael Milkens of the world. Do they have some incredible gift the rest of us lack, an ability to make cool decisions under fire when we let emotion get in the way, to coolly assess the impact of each trade as though millions — or billions — of dollars aren’t riding on the next click of their mouse?
Richard Dennis, “the Prince of the Pits,” a man who’d already made a fortune on the Street, was convinced that great trading wasn’t a gift from God, but something that could be taught to anyone. So one day he made a bet with his partner, and ran a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal looking for trainees. And he didn’t just hire finance professionals: his trainees — who became known as the “Turtles”– included an actor, a security guard, two professional blackjack players, a pianist, a fantasy game designer, and others. After two weeks of training, he set them loose, with a $1 million bankroll each to invest as they chose, and the right to keep a share of their trading gains for themselves, as long they adhered to the Turtle system. By the time the program ended, Dennis and his partner had made over $120 million — from trades made by complete novices. Many of these Turtles then went on to trade for themselves, and some are among the top investors operating today.
As fascinating as Dannis and the Turtles’ story is, Covel doesn’t stop there. He lays out, in detail, the exact system the Turtles used to reap their millions. And because the Turtle system is a form of so-called technical investing, meaning the Turtles weren’t concerned about the fundamentals of the investments they made, it is an investing strategy where a Wall Street operator, plugged into the second-by-second madness of finance, has NO advantage over an ordinary investor. And Covel takes us step-by-step through all the details needed to apply this at home.
The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results
Without Covel’s assumptions could have been an interesting book. True name of the book is “The Complete Turtle Trader as Covel would like it to be”.
Rating: 1 / 5
Covel’s book is an excellent, in depth look into the personalities of Dennis, Eckhardt and the “Turtles” they trained and mentored. We get a great view into the humanity of the organization that started large scale systematic trading in a time when most traders were addicted to fundamentals ( some things haven’t changed in that regard).
The emotional highs and lows, the risks, the luck, and the losses are methodically organized and documented. History was written as it happened on the trading floor. In short, its a clear, concise read and is a new addition to Covel’s first book, Trend following.
Rating: 5 / 5
Michael W. Covel has managed to master the art of writing about the stock market, namely the story of the infamous ‘Turtle Trader’ group, by including all the ‘in-house’ information and language and statistics while adjusting the significant bit of history into a narrative that reads like a novel. For the reader who knows little about the stock market and the means by which it trades and responds/creates the economic climate of this country, this book is a fascinating insight into an actual experiment where it was proven that financial wizards are not necessarily born (‘nature’) to their wealthy destiny, but instead can be ordinary people (yes, like us) who can be ‘nurtured’ by wise teachers to learn the ropes of the sacrosanct.
Covel seduces us in his well-written Preface: ‘People do have a chance to win in the market game, but he or she needs the right rules and the attitude to play by. And those right rules and attitude collide head-on with basic human nature.’ And there he has us, as neophytes, well in hand into exploring his well documented, thorough, and (most important for neophytes) well written book THE COMPLETE TURTLE TRADER: THE LEGEND, THE LESSONS, THE RESULTS. What follows is a fine background of two big, philosophically disparate money men – Richard J. Dennis and William Eckhardt – who created the Turtle Traders in 1983, a group of men/women who responded to a newspaper ad, coming from widely different backgrounds, and learned the basic rules of trading and investing using the money of the mentors. How they did this and the success they achieved proved conclusively that learning to become wealthy in the money market CAN be learned.
To make this book interest sustaining in nature, Covel identifies the Turtle Traders and follows their group and individual histories in a manner that approaches a screenplay. We get to know them, feel their development, learn of their power plays that result in monumental gains and equally huge losses, and in doing so Covel personalizes his data, adding the follow-up history of this select group to bring a since of closure to his well researched book. And for a book about something as potentially obtuse and foreign to the market-challenged reader, Covel has succeeded in making a page-turner! This strongly written book should be in the library of every person who deals with the Wall Street life, but it is also a tantalizing insider’s look at how the mystique of the money baron bubble can be popped! Grady Harp, November 07
Rating: 5 / 5
I struggled evaluating the proper method to trade. Without the patience to wait on long term trades my preference is intra-day trading. Struggling with different ideas and algorythms the book brought it home for me. This book, coupled with “The Complete Turtle Trader” changed my whole theory of the trade…. Keep it Simple Stupid! After taking the complexity out of the algorythm and staying focused on the more simple charts, I finally… yes finally became a successful trader.
Rating: 5 / 5
Congrats. All the basics are right in front of the reader… the info in this
valuable book gives the serious reader a good understanding of the trend
trading concept, then allows them to build their own personalized system,
utilizing a time proven method as the foundation.
The book certainly also proves the long term success of trend following.
Eastern Research & Trading
Bill G. / Singapore
Rating: 4 / 5