This famous little want ad started it all:

This famous little want ad started it all:

View the original Richard Dennis want ad.

My second book The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results is about the turtles. Forget what you think you know, the inside story is not out there even as of July 1, 2007.

The flesh and blood on the bones has never been added — until now. Access was granted to multiple sources (read: turtles, their brokers, their investors, their students, their employees, their former bosses) all on the record. There are turtles on the record that have never been quoted until now. They all have painted an inside view of the experiment that doesn’t come close to Jack Schwager’s books. Don’t get me wrong, Jack’s books are classics, but the turtles would not talk to him. That has changed. Book details include:

• All of the characters are revealed.
• A complete narrative story from the early 1970s to 2007 is laid out. This is not an autobiography.
• There was hearty competition among some turtles. Where does the truth lie?
• The real life “Trading Places” movie.

TurtleTrader is the 80,000 word authoritative look at the Turtle complete story — all the good and all the bad are in it. Legends built up and legends broken down. Truth and hype uncovered. All from multiple vantage points not a single source.

Bottom line though it is a trading and investing goldmine of insight. The book was sold over the summer to HarperCollins (Publisher of Freakonomics, Good to Great, etc.).

Even today, long after the experiment was started in 1983, it is relevant. Why? For simple starters, turtle Jerry Parker, turtle Paul Rabar and one of their teachers William Eckhardt manage a combined $3+ billion dollars in assets. This is a complete and objective money making (and in some instances money losing) story with unexpected twists along the way.

Why The Complete TurtleTrader Is Still the Definitive Account

The story of Richard Dennis, William Eckhardt, and the 23 people who became known as the Turtles has been referenced in dozens of books and articles since the experiment ended. None of those accounts had what this book has: the participants themselves speaking on the record for the first time. The brokers who handled their accounts. The investors who gave Dennis money to fund them. The fellow Turtles who watched each other succeed and fail. The employees who were there. All on record. All with their actual names attached to their actual statements.

Jack Schwager profiled several Turtles in his Market Wizards series, but as noted here, the Turtles would not talk to him about the experiment itself. The rules were under confidentiality agreement. The dynamics between the participants were private. The disagreements, the competitions, the unexpected results were not public record. The Complete TurtleTrader broke that barrier because enough time had passed and enough participants were willing to speak.

The “legends built up and legends broken down” description is the most honest characterization of what the book contains. Some Turtles became enormously successful independent managers. Others failed despite having identical rules and identical starting conditions. The book examines both outcomes with equal rigor. The successful outcome is inspiring. The failed outcome is instructive. Understanding why the same rules produced different long-run results among people who were trained identically is the most valuable lesson the story offers.

The relevance question the book poses directly — why is this still relevant decades after the experiment ended? — is answered by the $3+ billion in combined assets under management by Parker, Rabar, and Eckhardt. These are not historical figures. They are active managers producing returns for clients today using systems derived from what Dennis taught them. The experiment’s results are still compounding in live markets with real capital. That is the definition of relevance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes The Complete TurtleTrader different from other accounts of the Turtle experiment?

It is the first account with on-the-record interviews from the Turtle participants themselves, plus their brokers, investors, students, employees, and former bosses. Previous accounts relied on secondhand information and often conflicting versions of events. The book provides a complete narrative from multiple firsthand sources, covering the full arc from the early 1970s through 2007, including the internal competition among Turtles and the unexpected divergence of outcomes among people trained on the same rules.

Who published The Complete TurtleTrader and what is its scope?

HarperCollins, publisher of Freakonomics and Good to Great, published the book. It is 80,000 words covering the complete story — all the good and all the bad — from multiple vantage points rather than a single source perspective. It is not an autobiography. It is a narrative account of an experiment that proved trading can be taught and that the same rules produce dramatically different outcomes depending on the psychological makeup of the trader who follows them.

Why is the Turtle story still relevant today?

Because the participants are still active. Jerry Parker’s Chesapeake Capital, Paul Rabar’s Rabar Market Research, and William Eckhardt’s Eckhardt Trading manage billions of dollars using approaches descended from what Dennis taught. The experiment did not end in the 1980s. It is still running in live markets with real capital and real clients. The story of how it started is the story of how systematic trend following became an institutional asset class.

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