The Turtle Traders: can anyone be taught to trade?
In 1983, two Chicago traders made a bet. One said great traders are born. The other said trading could be taught to almost anyone. To settle it, they put an ad in the newspaper, and over 1,000 people applied.
Who they were
Richard Dennis was a famous Chicago futures trader. By the early 1980s, he was known as the "Prince of the Pit." By most accounts, he had built a large fortune from a very small start.
His partner, William Eckhardt, was a trader with a math background. The two often argued about one question: is trading a gift, or a skill?
Dennis thought it was a skill. Eckhardt thought it was mostly talent. They decided to test it.
The name came from a trip. The story goes that Dennis had visited a turtle farm in Singapore and said: "We are going to grow traders just like they grow turtles in Singapore."
What happened
The ad
In late 1983, Dennis's firm ran ads in The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and the International Herald Tribune. They were looking for trainees. No experience needed.
More than 1,000 people applied. They had to answer true-or-false questions and short essays, then come for an interview.
The students
Dennis and Eckhardt picked a small group to train in Chicago. A second group followed in 1984. Sources disagree on the exact number. The figure most often given is 23 across both groups.
The students were a mixed group. A few had traded before; many had not. The youngest, Curtis Faith, was 19.
Two weeks of rules
The training lasted about two weeks. Then each student got a real account to trade with Dennis's money.
The rules were written down and mechanical. In simple terms:
- Entry: buy when price breaks above its highest point of the last 20 or 55 days. Sell short when it breaks below its lowest.
- Size: set each trade's size from how much that market usually moves in a day. Wild markets got smaller positions, calm ones larger. They called that daily move "N," close to what's now called ATR.
- Stop: get out if price moved a fixed number of "N" against you.
- Exit: leave when price broke back the other way over a shorter window.
It was a trend following strategy: many small losses, and a few long trends that did most of the work.
The results
By most accounts, the group made more than $100 million in combined trading gains over about four years. Estimates vary, and some sources give much higher numbers. There's no single audited total.
The program ended in 1988. Dennis himself had heavy losses in 1987 and 1988 and stepped back from trading for a time.
The moment everyone remembers
The famous moment is the ad. The idea that a newspaper notice could turn strangers into traders still sounds wild.
But the detail traders talk about most came later. Former Turtle Curtis Faith, in his 2007 book Way of the Turtle, wrote that the students all had the same rules, yet their results were very different.
Why? Some followed the rules on the hard days. Some didn't. Some skipped trades after a run of losses, and missed the big trend that came next.
The rules could be taught. Following them was the hard part.
What it teaches
1. Write your rules down
The Turtles had rules on paper for every step: entry, size, stop, exit. Nothing was left to mood. That's what a trading plan is for.
2. Size each trade from risk, not from hope
Their sizing rule meant one bad trade in a wild market couldn't hurt more than one in a calm market. It's the same idea as setting Position size from your stop. Our position size calculator does it in seconds, and ATR explained shows how daily movement is measured.
3. Losing streaks are part of the system
Trend following loses often. The Turtles knew that a long run of small losses was normal. Skipping trades during the slump is what hurt some of them most. Our guide on how to handle a losing streak has a plan for those weeks.
4. Practice before real money
The Turtles were trained before they traded. Beginners can do that for free by practicing on past charts and logging each trade. See practice trading without money.
What it doesn't mean
It doesn't mean anyone can get these results. The Turtles traded a lot of someone else's money, in the trending markets of the 1980s, with a famous mentor. Their exact rules have since been published and widely tested. Many later traders found long dry spells using them.
It doesn't mean the experiment "proved" anything for sure. It was one small group, picked carefully from over 1,000 people. The ones who did best got the most attention later.
And it doesn't mean rules are enough. The rules worked only for those who followed them. That's the honest lesson.
Timeline
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| Early 1980s | Dennis and Eckhardt argue: can trading be taught? |
| Late 1983 | Ads appear; over 1,000 people apply |
| Dec 1983–Jan 1984 | First group trains in Chicago |
| 1984 | A second group is trained |
| 1984–1988 | The Turtles trade Dennis's money |
| 1988 | The program ends after Dennis's heavy losses |
| 2007 | Curtis Faith publishes Way of the Turtle |
Questions
How many Turtle Traders were there?
Sources disagree, but the number most often given is 23, trained in two groups in 1983–84. More than 1,000 people applied.
Did the Turtle Trading experiment work?
By most accounts, the group made more than $100 million in combined gains over about four years, which suggested trading rules can be taught. But results varied a lot between students, mostly by how well each followed the rules.
What were the Turtle Trading rules?
Buy on a break above the highest price of the last 20 or 55 days, sell short on a break below the lowest, size each trade by how much the market usually moves, use a fixed stop, and exit on a shorter break the other way.
Does Turtle Trading still work today?
Nobody can promise that. The rules are public, and many traders who tested them found long losing stretches. Like any approach, it should be practiced on past charts first, with small risk.
Want the next step? We'll walk you through it.
Four free lessons by email, one every few days — each with a 10-minute exercise on a real chart.
Send Me the Free Lessons 4 short emails · No spam · Unsubscribe anytimeOr see the whole method, step by step:
See What’s Inside the Course Try everything free first. Decide when you're ready. · Open the free chart tool (works in the TradingView phone app)One chart idea a day, in plain English. Follow along: