Review excerpt from David Penn, a staff writer for STOCKS & COMMODITIES Magazine:

While TurtleTrader.com is obviously devoted to trend following, what makes the method work is not the genius of the website developers, nor the genius of Richard Dennis or other traders identified with turtle trading. In some ways, the secrecy to which many original turtles were sworn has confused the issue of turtle trading, making the methodology seem more clandestine and complex than it really is, while providing an unfortunate platform for less scrupulous promoters to offer the secret of turtle trading to aspiring, yet unsuspecting, traders. As one of the administrators of TurtleTrader.com suggested in e-mail, all Turtle trading amounts to, in the end, is trend-following. Indeed, there were successful trend-followers long before Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt’s turtle trading experiment, according to that administrator: “To some degree, we see the question as a continuation of the secrecy hype first revealed in Schwager’s books. Great books, indeed, but the secrecy part of turtles and trend following was misleading…Given that so many other trend-followers were kicking butt at the same time of the turtles’ creation…turtle trend-following is not a secret. It simply takes proper teaching.” And that is good news for all of us.

Penn’s review cuts directly to the core of what TurtleTrader has always argued. The Turtle experiment was not a discovery of a hidden trading secret. It was a demonstration that systematic trend following, an approach with a long documented history predating Dennis and Eckhardt, could be taught to beginners and produce substantial results when followed with discipline. The secrecy surrounding the original Turtles created an aura of mystery that attracted both genuine students and promoters who monetized that mystery without delivering genuine understanding.

The methodology is not clandestine. The principles of entering on breakouts, cutting losses at predefined levels, sizing positions relative to volatility, and letting winning trends run as long as possible are openly documented and have been applied by traders across multiple generations. Richard Donchian was applying them decades before Dennis and Eckhardt’s experiment. The Turtles proved them again. The independent systematic managers who produced correlated returns across the same period proved them again. The proof is in the performance records, not in any secret formula that requires special access to understand.

What “proper teaching” means, as the TurtleTrader administrator put it, is not revealing a secret. It is providing the framework, the rules, the psychological context, and the historical evidence needed to understand why the approach works and how to apply it with the discipline the approach requires. For that framework in full, see the TurtleTrader rules and the TurtleTrader story. For the broader context of trend following’s history before and after the Turtle experiment, see the trend following overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Stocks and Commodities Magazine say about TurtleTrader?

Staff writer David Penn wrote that TurtleTrader correctly identifies what makes Turtle trading work: it is trend following, not secret genius or proprietary methodology. Penn endorsed the site’s position that the secrecy surrounding the original Turtles was misleading, that successful trend followers existed long before the Turtle experiment, and that the approach simply requires proper teaching rather than access to a hidden formula.

What is the truth about the secrecy of the Turtle trading system?

The Turtle trading methodology is trend following applied systematically. The principles of breakout entries, predefined stops, volatility-based position sizing, and trailing exits were documented and practiced by traders before Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt ran their experiment. The secrecy surrounding the original Turtles created commercial value for promoters but obscured the fact that the approach was already well established in the systematic trading community.

What does “it simply takes proper teaching” mean?

It means that the obstacle to trend following success is not access to secret rules but understanding of the framework, the psychological demands, and the historical evidence that supports the approach. Proper teaching provides the complete picture: the rules, the reasoning behind them, the performance evidence, and the psychological context needed to follow them with sufficient discipline for the edge to express itself over time.

Trend Following Systems
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