Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders Hardcover – March 9, 2007

If the term 'Turtles' has you scratching your head, then I will start by saying that they were a group of students brought together by legendary trader Richard Dennis (featured in Market Wizards) in the mid-1980s as part of an experiment to see if successful trading could be taught. Dennis and his partner William Eckhardt (featured in The New Market Wizards) selected two classes and taught them their trend following methodology, then provided each with trading capital and set them loose on the markets.Way of the Turtle is less a history lesson about the Turtles (for that you can read The Complete Turtle Trader), and more a deeper discussion of the philosophy behind the trend following methodology Dennis and Eckhardt taught them and the implementation of that system. The Turtle system has been published in other formats and other places before now, but Faith does more than that in Way of the Turtle. He talks considerably about the requirements for successfully implementing the system and how easy it is to fail with it.To my mind, Way of the Turtle is a book of three primary parts. One is a really interesting discussion of the psychology of traders and the markets. Another is a very thorough exploration of system development, testing, and performance measurement. The final part is specific discussions of the Turtles and their methods.The issue some readers might have is the manner of presentation of the parts.I personally found the chapters on system design, testing, and evalutation to be the most unified and consistently coherent of the book. They progress well and present some things that I have not previously seen in comparable discussions. I found Faith's coverage of the material to be an excellent advancement into somewhat more complex approaches for one who has a decent basic grounding. His discussion of the subject is, to my mind, a virtual must read for anyone look to develop and/or evaluate trading systems.In terms of trader and market psychology, the early chapters of the book are an outstanding exposition on the different biases and mental states that we all go through as market participants in one fashion or another. It was this material, so plainly laid out, which got me very excited to be reading the book. It really is a fantastic look at the things we have in our heads which can create so much havoc in our trading, and Faith frequently cites examples of these things through the remainder of the book in talking about his and other Turtles' successes and failures trading their system.It's in the third subject of the book where many readers may find it lacking. Way of the Turtle, as I noted at the outset, is not a history. While Faith does clearly deliniate the full Turtle system he spends relatively little time talking about the grand experiment which the Turtles were meant to be. Rather he provides views and opinions from his own perspective. Necessarily, that makes for a narrow scope. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. One just needs to realize that going in and be prepared to find it in little bits scattered throughout the text.Here's the biggest rub - at least for someone expecting to come away with an immediately useful trading system. Even though the book does tell you exactly how the Turtle system worked, don't expect it to be something you can use yourself. It was specifically designed for use across an array of markets by traders with a large capital base. By that I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars, minimum. As such, the vast majority of readers will not be in a position to make use of it.So it's a question of expectations. Are you looking to become a new Turtle and trade just like them? If so, you're probably going to be disappointed. If, however, you are looking to learn from the experience and education of someone who was there, who learned a great many lessons under the tutelage of a pair of legendary traders, then you will probably come away from reading Way of the Turtle quite satisfied.

I have traded: Daytraded (30-50 trades a day, churning the acct. during the internet bubble) started with $30,000 and in a year was up over $200,000.This is easy. Anything I read about, I bought after 9:45am and sold the 15-25 positions I bought before 10:45am with a net 70% winners. Go out for lunch with others from the sweatshop, returned at 2pm, 2:30-3pm buy 10-20 stocks, 300/500/1000 shares using margin, always the internet flyers (amazon, yahoo, dell, google, and a short list of 100. We had a new guy to follow, Jim Cramer, who was writing a newsletter to Jeff. Jeff would load up his positions (he would hold for 3,4,5 days, swing trade, AND he had traded for acct.s at Paine Webber for 4 years before opening his own acct.), anyway, he would load up his positions, and then tell the room (20-30 traders) what to buy... and create his own trend... I left the bubble on 2001 from all the fun of 1998, with Planet Hollywood bought at $24 and then at $2 (10,000shares... just like Hard Rock, I'm gonna get rich!) and another: Puma Tech. (bought out by Nokia for all their pattents at pennies on the dollar... I'm still deducting only $3000 a year off taxes from the $100K+ losses. I never harvested any money, never took $25,000 off the table, and deposited it into a bank acct. every 3 months... GREED and EMOTIONS. But, now I read Trendtraders and Way of the Turtle and better understand that I was swept up into a hurricane, swept up in a massive trend, and was uneducted, and thought I was "lucky".Read these 2 books and Covel's other course materials, and learn the proper way to trade, invest, harvest gains, manage money, use stops, and become emotionally cold. Sell the RED trades quickly, and let the green trades run, until they slow, and then sell. Have a sell target ready ever before we make a trade. I came back to the markets and lost moneis 3 more times since 2001. I would read Elder, and his system to id trends, and 13ema cross-overs etc. and lost, I read, reentered and now I am down to my last monies. I have read The Way of the Turtle Trader, and The Trend Follower, both books completed this past month. I waited for my excitment to simmer down. I can now say after the second readings, I see my errors, and will humbly study, and follow Covel's studies... I will add to this review in 6 more months after I venture into the shark filled waters of the trading world. I shall have paid too much money on ego, and not have found these excellent books, and trustworthy Covel trading systems. I traded next to my friend Tom's Tradestation programmed computer, and still my money mismanagement was the achilles heal that had me still trying to hit homeruns EVERY time, and not realizing singles, and doubles, and even walks, are part of staying in the major leagues, not hitting a homerun only every 55 times up to the plate! Read these books! Hold back playing with your money, read these books, and go to the website. Ask for Mike, Michael Covel. There are better systems than LUCK.

It's a very interesting read to find out how the turtles were raised to trade millions. What makes it more interesting is that it has been a secret all these years. This book gives you a very good look the read hard-core trading system and it's users. It makes you think your own trading and system and helps figure out new ideas. However, the turtle system is not for all like it is stated in the book. You should have $100,000 trading account at minimum to try this out and it doesn't guarantee that you would succeed. So for the small scale traders this system is not applicable. It is also mentioned that not all people have the attitude and mindset to strictly follow the rules, which is really needed for the system to work. I would recommend this book for all who are into trading, but with the reservation it might not make you a succesful trader. But then, what book could?