Can professional trading be taught, or is it an innate talent?
In the early 1980s, two legendary commodities traders, Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt, had a long-standing dispute. Dennis believed that anyone could be taught to trade successfully, while Eckhardt argued that trading was an inborn talent.
To settle the bet, Dennis decided to recruit a group of people from all walks of life—including a professional backgammon player, a dungeon master, and a musician—and give them a set of strict rules and real capital to trade.
"We're going to grow traders just like they grow turtles in Singapore." — Richard Dennis
The students, famously known as the "Turtles," were taught a complete Trend Following system. This wasn't about guessing market direction; it was about mechanical rules for:
The experiment was a massive success. The Turtles earned over $175 million for Dennis in just five years. It proved that a disciplined approach to risk management and trend following could outperform the market, regardless of a person's background.
The secret wasn't a magic crystal ball—it was mathematical discipline and the ability to strictly follow a system even during losing streaks.
One of the most revolutionary aspects of the Turtle system was the use of "N" (Average True Range). They didn't just buy a random number of contracts; they adjusted their position size so that every trade had the same "dollar volatility" risk.
If the rules were so successful and are now public, why isn't everyone a millionaire? The history of the Turtles shows that the hardest part isn't the math—it's the psychology.
Modern markets move faster than they did in the 80s, but the core principles of the Turtle System—Risk Management and Trend Following—remain the foundation of professional trading.
To help you apply these legendary principles, we’ve built the Turtle Calculator. It automates the complex volatility-based sizing and pyramiding levels used by the original Turtles.