Booknotes: The Complete TurtleTrader

• The Turtles were trained to be trend-following traders. In a nutshell, that meant that they needed a "trend" to make money.
• Risk 2% of account for each trade.
• Traders who face the same opportunity must trade the same. Personal feelings can't interfere.
• The Turtles were taught not to fixate on when they entered a market. They were taught to worry about when they will exit.
• The Turtles were supposed to say, "I want to buy or sell short markets that are in motion, because markets in motion tend to stay in motion."
• Don't try to predict how long a trend either up or down will last. It is impossible.
  
• The Turtles were not to wait for a retracement. There was no statistical justification to think like that.
• They learned that it was better to risk taking many small losses than to risk missing one large profit.
• Entries and Exits: "It's always better to buy rallies."
• The Turtles were taught to enter trades via "breakouts." A breakout occurs when a market "breaks through" a recent high or low.
• Start keeping track of the open, high, low, and close of each market you are tracking. That is the key date you need to make all of your trading decisions.
• System One (S1) used a 20-day price breakout for entry and 10-day breakout in opposite direction for exit.
• S2 used 55-day entry and 20-day exit.
• To calculate N: 1. today's high minus low; 2. yesterday's close minus today's high; 3. yesterday's close minus today's low. Maximum value of three is the "true range."
• 20-day average is the N.
• Also a 2N stop.
• Low "N" measurement at the time of entry is a good thing.
• Pyramiding: Adding units at each N move.
• Avoid markets that are highly correlated.