Turtle tell-all

The new book by Curtis Faith “Way of the Turtle” is an excellent mixture of commodity trading lore, statistical analysis theory and good sense trading psychology lessons. Curtis Faith was the youngest - he was 19 at the time - and most profitable of the ‘Turtles’, a group of apprentice traders that were trained to trade commodities by the legendary team of Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt, and then gave them trading accounts to trade. In four years Curtis Faith made over 31 million for the team. By strictly following the rules he had learned in only two weeks of training sessions, he parlayed millions. The only part of the book that bored me was one chapter on statistics and gaming theory, there is a lot to absorb there, and a lot of reference material. One subject I really took to heart was letting go of ego. Chapter 14 “Mastering Your Demons” subtitle says “The market does not care how you feel. It will not prop up your ego or console you when you are down.” Another excerpt “If you want to be a great trader, you must conquer your ego and develop humility.” is a lesson the market will teach you if you survive it long enough to learn. It looks like Curtis Faith had all the needed characteristics to begin with because he was extremely successful from the beginning. One concept I did glean from the book that goes against the books subtitle “The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders” is, there really are no ‘Secret Methods’. For anyone who wants to improve their knowledge and understanding of trading theory, I highly recommend reading Way of the Turtle.