Ben Power speaks to the Turtle trader about achieving trading success, and about how traders can better utilise their intuition.

Curtis Faith was part of the legendary, and at times controversial, Turtles. In the 1980s Richard Dennis, a Chicago commodities trader who turned $1000 into $200 million, hired a group of 23 people to attempt to prove to his partner William Eckhardt that traders could be taught. Eckhardt thought Dennis’ success came from an innate talent that couldn’t be passed on to others.

The Turtles, supposedly named because Dennis said he was going to grow successful traders like a turtle farm he’d seen in Singapore grew turtles, were taught a long-term trend-following system, a set of mechanical rules that attempted to manage risk and capture big moves in a variety of markets.

The project was a success, with the Turtles reportedly earning $US175 million profit in five years. Some, including Jerry Parker of Chesapeake Capital, have gone on to be successful money managers. Faith, the youngest Turtle, earned more than $US30 million before the group was disbanded.

Faith has been one of the few Turtles to speak and write about his Turtle experience. Since the Turtle experiment ended, Faith has launched businesses, run a fund and traded his personal account. Faith has also written about the Turtles in his books, ‘Way of the Turtle’ and ‘Inside the Mind of the Turtles’.

His latest book, ‘Trading from Your Gut’, represents his belief that trading success comes not only from following Turtle-like mechanical rules, but also from intuition. The book outlines how traders can benefit not just from left-brain analysis, but from increasing their use of right-brain instincts.

Faith spoke with YTE’s Ben Power...

Excerpted from an article originally published in the May/Jun 2011 issue of YourTradingEdge magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2011, Your Media Edge Pty Ltd.
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