Way of the turtle begins with an explanation of the initial Turtle Trading experiment. This experiment came about after a dispute between Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt on the issue of weather great traders were born or made. Dennis had the view that an individual could be taught to be great trader while Eckhardt thought great traders required genetics and aptitude. In order to settle the matter ads were taken out in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Barron’s. The ads were for the position of trading apprentices and after an initial training period the trainee would be given an account to trade. Out of a thousand applicants 13 were selected, these trainees were known as the Turtles.

Curtis M. Faith, the youngest member of the original Turtle group, wrote way of the Turtle. It contains 278 pages not including the index forward and preface. The well-respected trading coach Van K. Tharp authored the preface and stated, “[Way of the Turtle] is one of the five best trading books ever written, and I will recommend that all my clients become familiar with its contents”.

Way of the Turtle Contents

• Chapter One – Risk Junkies
• Chapter Two – Taming the Turtle Mind
• Issues of psychology and the traders mind are talked about
• Chapter Three – The First $2 Million is the Toughest
• Chapter Four – Think Like a Turtle
• Chapter Five – Trading with an Edge
• Chapter Six - Falling of the Edge
• Chapter Seven – By what Measure?
• Chapter Eight – Risk and Money Management
• Chapter Nine – Turtle-Style Building Blocks
• Chapter Ten – Turtle-Style Trading: Step-by-Step
• Chapter Eleven – Lies, Damn Lies, and Backtests
• Chapter Twelve - On Solid Ground
• Chapter Thirteen – Bullet-proof Systems
• Chapter Fourteen – Mastering Your Demons
• Bonus Chapter – Original Turtle Trading Rules

The book takes a non-technical approach to explain key trading issues, by that I mean concepts are presented descriptively rather than quantitatively. This will definitely appeal to readers who do not have a technical background and makes for much easier reading.

The first chapter delves into the different market participants by focussing on the different trading styles of the hedger, scalper and speculator. Curtis also talks about the trading pits of Chicago and their death. This is a very brief coverage and as is most of the book geared towards futures traders. Psychology of trading and different market states are briefly touched upon, before looking at some simple technical indicators. .

Later chapters go through the risk of ruin, expectation, money management and gaining an edge for your trading. Throughout these chapters, indicators and statistical measures are introduced that are helpful in evaluating system performance. The money management section was very limited in scope, however this was deliberate Curtis states “Others have devised complex formulas and written entire books about money management. It shouldn’t be that complicated”.

There are six trading systems compared and contrasted in the book they are:

1. ATR Channel Breakout
2. Bollinger Breakout
3. Donchian Trend
4. Donchian Trend with time exit
5. Dual Moving Average
6. Triple Moving Average

Lies, damn lies and backtests, was by far one of the books stand out chapters and is something anyone considering buying a trading system or a black box system should read before making a decision. The bonus chapter rounds out the book by detailing the original turtle trading rules; this material has been around on the internet for a while.

Way of the Turtle is a must read trading book for the new trader it is full of wisdom and insight. The intermediate trader will derive less value from this book as a fair portion of the book is devoted to some of the basic trading concepts. That being said the pragmatic and structured approach in which ideas are presented allows for even the most advanced trader reading this book to gain knowledge without being bored. This book covers a lot of key areas in the development and testing of a trading system and provides an insider’s view of the Turtle trading experiment. I enjoyed the candour and openness of Curtis’s epilogue and the fact that he can readily admit his failures and talks about the issue of learning requiring failure. I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering a career as a trader.

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One of my favourite quotes on the subject of failure:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan

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Today we will be putting Windows Vista Business Edition to the trading platform  test. The programs that we will be testing under Windows Vista Business Edition today are Global Trading System Professional by FX Solutions and TeleTrader Professional or FX AccuCharts.

Installation

These two programs are packaged separately therefore you will have to install them separately. It is not important which program is installed first.I have chosen to install FX AccuCharts first.

FX AccuCharts Install

The FX AccuCharts installation is very straightforward, simply choose an install location, agree to the licence, choose a username and finally choose a complete or custom install (I have gone for complete). The time it takes to install FX AccuCharts is significantly longer then most other platforms. When installation is completed it gives you the option to launch both the application and manual. After installation an icon is placed on the desktop.

Global Trading System Professional Install

The Global Trading System Professional (GTS pro) installation is very straightforward, it was a little different to other installers as it is a self-extracting archive; therefore, the setup program is unzipped before the install can begin. In the setup, an install location is chosen and then GTS Pro is installed and an Icon is placed on the Desktop.

FX AccuCharts

On first launch of FX AccuCharts you will notice the very clean interface utilizing Windows Vista’s graphical improvements.  There are numerous features in FX AccuCharts, however in essence it is really an offline charting and technical analysis application that uses a proprietary data feed. The main fetures include:

• 150 advanced technical indicators and oscillators.
• Ability to modify and create custom indicators using TeleTrader langauge.
• Advanced drawing tools which include: line drawing tool, shape drawing tool, Fibonacci fan drawing tool, Fibonacci retracements drawing tool, Fibonacci Arc drawing tool, Speed resistance drawing tool, Gann fan drawing tool, Andrews Pitchfork drawing tool and cycle line drawing tool.
• An audible alert system for when price alerts are hit.    

Overall FX AccuCharts is an average analysis tool and works very well under Windows Vista Business Edition. FX AccuCharts is fast responsive and provides a large and varied number of tools to help in trading. I would not recommend this program for real time analysis however it is good tool. An image of FX AccuCharts shown below.

Global Trading System Professional

GTS Pro also makes use of Windows Vista look and feel. The platform consist of one of the best laid out main window interfaces that I have seen on any trading platform. It is clear to see that this platform has been designed with usability in mind.

The default main window view is shown above and consists of:

• The top toolbar shows Accounts, Balance, MTM P/L in dollar terms, Equity, Used Margin and Usable Margin.
• The AUD/USD order selection window shows live Bid/Ask prices and High/Low prices for respective currencies.
• Streaming tick chart for desired currency.
• Account information.
• Currency pair summary.
• Pending Orders.
• Open Trades

Another truly innovative feature of GTS Pro is the Connection Health dialog box, which can be opened via the Help menu. The connection health dialog box displays the the number of connections, last connection time, average connection time, maximum connection time and the number of timeouts.

Another feature is the ability to set a price alert, you can set the alert on the Bid or Ask side and is a one click process from the main window. To place an alert you simply select your currency, choose the price for Bid or Ask and finally choose a sound file to play when the price reaches the target is hit.

GTS Pro also contains a feature that enables one click trading, which some users will welcome and others may view with caution. I fall into the caution camp, I have trialled this feature and would not recommend it to anyone trading a live account one wrong click and you can lose a lot of money in a short time, even if you close out the trade before the price moves you are still out the spread. If you choose to enable this feature you are presented with a lengthy legal disclaimer as shown below:

GTS Pro has several more notable features which include a Forex calculator, detailed custom reports, research tools, news tools, trading history, account rule manager, always on top ticker and more. You can click the image below to see GTS in dual screen mode highlighting these features.

Bottom Line

Both FX AccuCharts and GTS Pro run perfectly under Windows Vista Business Edition. As a trading platform GTS Pro is excellent it contains several innovative features and has the best user interface I have seen in a trading platform and is highly usable, however I am unsure of FX Solutions clearing methods and I would not trade with any broker that was not an ECN. FX AccuCharts has a wide range of quality drawing tools which are it’s stand out features. Due to the fact charting does not include live data makes FX AccuChart of very limited practical use. GTS Professional is a good platform, however I would only recommend it for demo trading.

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