I have read the turtle rules ( available for free on the net ) numerous times and I have come to the conclusion that the system does not fly as it was written. One possibility is that they used a medicore entry -exit system and used pyramiding as a way to control risk. Perhaps my frustration is from the fact that I cannot pyramid my trades in my backtesting software. However, it seems intuitively that the system should work whether or not I choose to pyramid trades and it does not. Has anyone had similar challenges in making the system work? Im primarily interested in trading the SP500 index. Also, is it me or is it much easier to develop equity trading systems than futures systems? Thanks, Eric
Futures systems typically lend themselves to mechanical rules better than equites atleast historically from what i have seen and the testing i have done. The main benefit with the non equity stuff is you can trade a basket of them and they don't correlate like the equity stuff does. There may be systems that trade the Russel and the Spoos and the NQ's, etc.....but more often that not they all go on a buy or a sell setup around the same time so you gotta be careful. Same thing with a baskets of stocks. Even if your trading a bank, a broker, an industial, a Techie, and a Natural gas play. If the S&P takes off your likely to get a buy signal across the board on everything. :-S The general rule is with futures you can usually get away with buying strength and shorting weakness, with equities most systems test better with pullback entries, this is especially true as you would imagine in bull mkts but depening on your time frame its also true in chop as well. The Turtles system, the one you have probably seen anyway hasn't worked very well in a while. (if its in the public domain assume this is the case 99% of the time) You might want to check out some of the systems at Futures truth that are doing well then google them to find out if they are trend following, contra, or what. While you wouldn't be able to get the exact logic behind them most systems that are sold and actively traded come with a paragraph or two describing the generic methodology atleast. Hope that helps....bit of a generic reply unfortunately.
================= Well, many derivatives trend sloppy/sloppy compared to NYSE; so thats why I prefer NYSE Also you will find some more specific answers, search ''inflector''or inflecter,elitetrader nickname, & turtletradingsoftware.com Disagree generaly about the system ''system should work, reguardles of pyramids''; but you maybe right specificaly about pyramids not working on SP500. Derivatives , & some stocks may trend longer [pyramid helping here] than indexes; so that explains the disagreement
I got an email recently from the russell sands newsletter ( he was a turtle trader vendor for yrs ) excerpt below ... -Turtles as a rule do not trade Intra Day or the S&Ps (in fact Rich Dennis said "do not trade the S&Ps using the Turtles methods")- you might want to contact him to see what he thinks now about using turtle breakout and money management rules to trade the SPOOS
there seems to be several t*rtle systems floating around--- one is sold for $1999.00 on t*rtletrader..com, and another free one from original tu*tles...com. has anyone actually spent the 1999.00 for the t*rtletrader system or tested the free one? surfer
Richard Dennis, The guy who developed the Turtle system does'nt trade it the same way anymore. One of the trader/commodities/futures rags ( I forgot which one) has a recent interview with him stating as much . Although he did give a subtle hint on how he currently uses it.