Turtle Trading to Success

The turtle trading stories is one of the most famous trading stories of all time. It showed first hand that the ordinary person could learn to trade the stock market, with extra ordinary returns.

It all started with two successful traders Robert Dennis and William Eckhardt. By the 1980s they were both seen as genius in the stock market. Dennis himself has been credited with turning $2,000 into $200 million dollars.

These two trading giants were having a discussion about who is able to learn to trade. Eckhardt believed only a few people with a special gift could be successful as a trader, while Dennis believed anyone could become a great trader.

To prove his theory Dennis set up an experiment, where he would find ordinary people and teach them his specific trading rules. The first part of the experiment was simple getting people to join. He put an ad in the Wall street journal, and soon thousands of people volunteered.

Of those only 14 would be selected to participate. Dennis used various criteria to narrow down the list, such as a true and false question guide. Some of the questions he asked where.

1. One should favor being long or being short, whichever one is comfortable with.

2. One initiation one should know precisely at what price one should liquidate if a profit occurs.

3. Under trading is almost never a problem

4. A losing month is an indication of doing something wrong.

In addition each participant was also asked a few essay questions such as

1. Name a historical figure you like and why.

2. In trading would you rather be good or lucky? Why?

3. Explain a decision you made under pressure and why that was your decision.

The 14 people who were chosen where called the “turtle traders” after turtle farms Dennis had visited in Singapore, Dennis believed he could grow traders as easily and efficiently as farm grown turtles.

Each of the turtle traders went through a two week training period and after they had proven themselves Dennis funded most of them with $1 million dollars to trade.

In the next 4 years the turtles gained an average of 80% a year and had pulled out $175 million dollars from the market.

Conclusion

The turtle trading story shows that anyone can learn to become a successful trader. You do not have to be a super genius to make money trading.

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