The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results by Michael W. Covel

The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results by Michael W. Covel

"The Complete TurtleTrader: How 23 Novice Investors Became Overnight Millionaires"—published by HarperCollins (2007)—is a definitive journalistic and technical history compiled by trend-following advocate Michael W. Covel.

The book chronicles one of the most legendary social experiments in financial history: the 1983 wager between iconic Chicago commodities traders Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt. Dennis believed that world-class trading skill could be reduced to a repeatable set of rule-based steps and taught to anyone; Eckhardt argued it was an unteachable, innate genetic gift. To settle the debate, they recruited 23 ordinary people from all walks of life—including an actor, a card player, a game designer, and a security guard—dubbed them the "Turtles" (after a visit to a Malaysian turtle breeding farm where Dennis noted he could "grow traders" the same way), handed them millions of dollars of firm capital, and unlocked an unprecedented gold rush of algorithmic wealth.