What happens when ordinary people are taught a system to make extraordinary money? Richard Dennis made a fortune on Wall Street by investing according to a few simple rules. Convinced that great trading was a skill that could be taught to anyone, he made a bet with his partner and ran a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal looking for novices to train. His recruits, later known as the Turtles, had anything but traditional Wall Street backgrounds; they included a professional blackjack player, a pianist, and a fantasy game designer. For two weeks, Dennis taught them his investment rules and philosophy, and set them loose to start trading, each with a million dollars of his money. By the time the experiment ended, Dennis had made a hundred million dollars from his Turtles and created one killer Wall Street legend.
This story is about Richard Dennis and his Turtle students. It is the inside look at the ups and downs, secrecy, hype, successes and failures of the men and women involved, along with a complete educational guide to the original rules taught to the Turtles. I follow the Turtles' lives from the original experiment to the present day. Some have grown even wealthier than ever, and include some of today's top hedge fund managers. Equally important are those who passed along their approach to a second generation of Turtles, proving that the Turtles' system truly is reproducible, and that anyone with the discipline and the desire to succeed can do as well as-or even better than-Wall Street's top hedge fund wizards.
For me, ultimately, this story is a human drama that we can all relate to. At the end of the day Richard Dennis and the Turtles were real people, with all of the biases and hang-ups associated with being human. They just happened to have figured out a way to keep those naturally occurring human impulses in check...to make some seriously big money.
As author Steve Gabriel wrote on Yahoo! Finance recently, "The experiment has already been done that shows that we can all learn to trade for a living if we want to. That is why the 'Turtles' matter."
The Turtles are an answer to the age-old question of nature versus nurture, the living proof of the single most famous Wall Street school for making money.
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Comments: 25
Bright Ideas from Bestselling Authors
I'll be hosting the chat on the 26th and wanted to recommend this book very highly (and not just because I'm the host but because it was truly a fascinating story of an incredible group of investors, well told, very engaging).
By the way, I do not consider myself a financial expert so don't think you have to be to read this and learn from it. Whatever your financial background or knowledge, this one is worth reading. I do try to stay informed, do my research and stay in the loop. This book was enlightening when it came to that, not at all dry or boring. You'll love the style, the quotes, the anecdotes.
For those interested in the chat, stay tuned for updates on Gather and send me a message if you want a "heads up" before the chat. I'll be emailing many in related groups but I don't want to miss anyone who might be new to Gather or not aware of the chat.
See everyone there. It should be fascinating!
All of this said, I have money in things I don't want it in right now, and my conscience is bothering me. I want out of any mutual fund that holds Monsanto, for example, and even my uncle, who is very sophisticated, has not answered me back about how to do that.
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