# Incubating Joeys - The Australian Turtle Experiment



## skc (26 June 2014)

Most of you would have heard of the Turtle traders... but did you know someone is doing the same thing now here in Australia?

Here's the blog.

http://incubatingjoeys.com/about/

Here's the guy running it.

http://rapacapintro.com/journal/journal/noticeboard/link/kevininterview

And here's an article from the AFR of one of the Joey's experience so far.

http://www.afr.com/p/lifestyle/afrm...to_live_the_day_trader_FXwctQObY8WgcAzTxQCjWN

A few good pieces of reading for anyone interested in the life of a trader.


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## barney (27 June 2014)

skc said:


> A few good pieces of reading for anyone interested in the life of a trader.




Probably not going to get a lot of posts on this SKC, but thanks for the links.  

There always seems to be a common thread with good traders ..... They all go through a baptism of trading fire before the light starts to shine.

I've been through the baptism part a couple of times ..... still trying to change the light bulb from a 40 watt to a 100 watt though


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## VSntchr (27 June 2014)

"When I trade I take every cyclone warning seriously and evacuate. This results in risk adjustment actions (which are expensive) that were unnecessary 80% of the time. I am happy to accept this and the resultant performance degradation, because when Cyclone Tracy hits, I won't be anywhere around."


This is a key quote from the interview with Saunders. A good reminder that leaving 'that' trade open overnight, or into the weekend, because you couldn't get the fill you wanted, is not worth it in the long run. The time that it gaps heavily against you will outweigh the other 80% of times that it allowed you to exit where you wanted. The psychological benefits of remaining strict with rules such as these would be tremendous for a trader overtime, not to mention the reduced stress-load.


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## minwa (28 June 2014)

Thanks for the links, interesting read..

So after a few months of being trained by someone who harps on about risk management, the Joey still lost 24% of his account in the first month of live trading. 







This really shows that demo trading does not prepare you for the live market at all. Would've been interesting to know Saunder's performance for the same period. I wonder how the other participants went, the reporter should follow them up.


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## barney (28 June 2014)

minwa said:


> This really shows that *demo trading does not prepare you for the live market *at all. Would've been interesting to know Saunder's performance for the same period. I wonder how the other participants went, *the reporter should follow them up*.




Agree 100% ..... I wonder whether the results are available??


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## Wysiwyg (28 June 2014)

minwa said:


> This really shows that demo trading does not prepare you for the live market at all. Would've been interesting to know Saunder's performance for the same period. I wonder how the other participants went, the reporter should follow them up.



It also shows that trend trading (Turtle Experiment - Dennis/Eckhardt) works best in trending markets and drawdowns can be large.

Also note that the "Turtle Experiment" started at the beginning of the 1983 strong bull run. That bull run after a 20 year range bound period. It appears on the DOW chart  the experiment started when the 1000 point resistance was broken. Clever men. That in itself proving trading breakouts does work.


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## minwa (30 June 2014)

The coach's performance is about 9.12% PA. His returns suffered after '12 with the decrease in volatility as he only shorts volatility/write premium.


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