Have you ever heard of the Turtle Traders? Maybe not. If not, then read this article to know the amazing story of how novices known as Turtle Traders became millionaires in a matter of a few years trading commodity futures. The story starts in 1983 !
Richard Dennis one of the great commodity traders who had started with $300 as a small time trader eventually ended up making $150M. He always believed that trading was something that anyone could learn and become a great trader . The story of the Turtle Traders starts when Richard had an argument with his trading partner and close friend Bill Eckhart. Bill had always believed that great traders were only born while Richard had always believed that great traders could be made, the famous nurture versus nature story .Â
So they decided to settle this matter once for all with their Turtle Trading Experiment. An advertisement was made in the famous newspapers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Barrons asking for people who had never traded before to apply for a trading apprenticeship with these two great traders . Many applied. In fact the number of applicants ran around a thousand. After shortlisting only 13 people who had never traded before were selected for the apprenticeship as the famous Turtles .
These 13 people were given a set of rules. These people became famous as the Turtle Traders and these set of rules became famous as the Turtle Trading Rules. The turtles were told to stick with these rules under all market conditions . Turtle would trade futures contracts on gold, silver, soybean, crude oil, currencies, stock indexes and so on always choosing the most liquid contracts. They did not have to think or do anything else except applying those rules in a rigorous manner.
In a few years times, almost all the turtle traders were millionaires themselves. A few failed. The reason was simple! They ignored the rules. Over the years, this project became famous as the Turtle Trading Experiment . What this experiment demonstrated is that anyone can become a great trader if he or she has a good tested rule based trading system. It also demonstrated the importance of trading discipline and trading psychology in trading!
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