I actually read Covel's "Complete Turtle..." book a couple years ago and just read Faith's "Way of the Turtle" this week. I know that Faith's was published a couple years prior to Covel's, but I just hadn't heard of it. Both of them were decent. Covel's a better writer and pretty much described the Turtle system the same way Faith did, but from what I recall, Faith provided more details on how they did their position sizing and built up to their maximum unit holdings. I think there's a benefit in reading them both. I just don't get Covel hanging on to this grudge he has to try to demean and belittle Faith at every chance he gets. He seems to love posting whatever he can find that puts Faith in a bad light. Finally, Covel is EXTREMELY hung up on Faith claiming to be the most successful Turtle to the point where Covel even has a little tab on the top of his main page that says, "BEST STUDENT," that takes you to a page about Jerry Parker. On that page, Covel snidely mentions some mysterious "other turtle" who claims to have been the best student.... really ridiculous and petty, that Covel is. Personally, I found Faith's description of why he said he was the "Best Student" (at first, anyway, on the preliminary trade where he caught...heating oil or natural gas or something) completely believable. He wasn't bragging... if anything, I thought LESS of him for being the "best" in that case because all it meant was he was the one most willing to be a simple automaton and follow the rules without thinking for himself. Sure, that's what it took to "get it right," but it's not a quality that I generally respect in a person. Oh well, I guess Covel's little heart is broken about Faith for some reason or another, but it's disgusting that he can't get over it even with his success. Then again, maybe he's not so successful if he needs to try to defraud people by selling them a $3,000 Turtle Class.
This is what Faith wrote about Covel in his free Turtle Trading Rules document approximately 15 years ago: "In the final analysis, TurtleTrader.com is not any better than other scams and system selling hucksters he warns about. It is a site run by a guy who appears to me to be more interested in taking his customers’ money than he is in their success with the system he sells; a site run by someone who misrepresents himself as an expert in trend following, yet doesn’t mention that he doesn’t trade. " Perhaps there was animosity between the two before that time, but that was the first i know of.
I am not sure if what Faith wrote about Covel is true. But if it is true, Covel loses my respect thoroughly. I despise people who make more money teaching about trading than trading itself and charges very high fees for teaching despite lacking the qualifications. It is an easy fact to verify. Get Michael Covel to produce his trading records from his broker. Show all the winners and losers. If he wants to teach, his students have the right to demand his qualification. If he cannot produce his past track records, don't ever pay him a single cent to learn from him. Why learn from a trader who can't trade or doesn't trade?
Yes they should. But none ever do. Newbie traders are attracted to trading snake oil vendors like flies onto a turd. As long as the marketing and sales pitch is good, no end of suckers will part with their cash without asking any questions.
A bit off topic but I find this review interesting (The Way of the Turtle): "So, here is the inconsistency: "If trading success is an easily taught mechanical process, presumably not requiring a lot of brainpower to master, why was it so important that the people recruited in to the trading world be so smart?" The author implies discipline is the key, not smarts. Yet, he never addresses this contradiction between the setup in the beginning of the book and the main conclusion. I don't think he is even aware of the gap."
Well, the thing his, the testing Dennis and Eckhart did may have resulted in netting intelligent people, but that doesn't mean that the rules provided required high intelligence to follow. Who knows why they selected for what they did. Maybe they just didn't want to work with people who would question them because they didn't understand something or who wouldn't be "smart enough" to realize that they weren't so smart that they didn't need to follow the instructions of two successful traders? Whatever... but although that is a curious thing, it doesn't really mean much to the results. That being said, it sort of reinforces my point that it made me think LESS of Faith that he so easily just "got in line" and followed the instructions without thinking for himself. Maybe that means I'm too dumb to realize I should just shut up and listen to successful people... Lol. PS: It's odd that Covel sells a "system" on his site for $3,000 but doesn't list results/past performance.
The "system" is only a tiny part of the Covel package. He also includes biographies of famous trendfollowers and similar content.