This was not standard operating procedure in a tight-lipped world where the big Chicago traders typically kept silent.Dennis enjoyed and even reveled in his upbringing and the unique perspective it afforded him:I grew up in an Irish-Catholic family on the South Side of Chicago. The units for other markets will vary, and the unit value for the S&P emini will also fluctuate as N changes over time.Turtles were limited on how many units they could accumulate (and remember, how many contracts are in a Unit will vary based on the market being traded, and on N), as they added to positions as they became more profitable.A single position was limited to 4 units. To circumvent a rule requiring traders to be at least twenty-one years of age, he worked as his own runner, and hired his father, who traded in his stead in the pit. 1 unit was purchased as 1500, another unit is added at 1510, another unit added at 1520, another at 1530, etc. Hume took on the sacred cows of his generation, and Dennis loved that attitude.It wasn’t only British philosophy that turned Dennis into a skeptic. Therefore, if using a system like this, it is recommended that traders have some sort of filter on their trades to help them stay out of choppy conditions…which can last for long periods of time. When he showed up late one day to the soybean pit explaining that his beat-up 1967 Chevy had broken down, other traders gave him flack, knowing full well he could afford a new car hundreds of times over.Not only was his persona different, his trading was different. People at the Board of Trade had been doing it forever. By the beginning of 1973, at twenty-four, Dennis had made $100,000. Initially he had no clue what he was doing, but he was a fast learner who learned to think like a casino operator: When I started out, I had a system called “having no idea whatsoever.” For four years, I was just taking edges. Dennis was teaching the young exchange members at either his or Willis’s apartment. I tried to be like the house in the casino. I’m solidly in the English tradition.” Dennis saw Hume as ruthlessly skeptical. People…don’t want to hear painful truths.”When invited to participate in the diplomatic dances that made up Washington politics, he stepped on toes, and seldom refrained from voicing his opinions. Yet Dennis never let the swirl around him interfere with what he was doing to make money.
He said, “One man’s volatility is another man’s profit.” When Dennis was a guest on a radio show in 1984, a caller assured him that if he traded long enough, he would give it all back. I think [training the Turtles] is the single best thing I’ve done in commodities.” Yet there was no way he could have known at the time that the single best thing he would do would change his life and the history of speculative trading in ways never imagined. There was more to becoming a millionaire by twenty-five than being “six foot something” and three hundred pounds plus. And those better traders were starting to make money. If you’re thinking what your batting average should be, you’re not concentrating on the right thing when you bat the ball. Each day the exchange floor was mobbed by hundreds of traders fighting and screaming to place their trades. He was depositing a $325,000 check (in 1976, that represented two to three weeks of work for him). There’s a strong urge to exit earlier but the Turtle Trading system is adamant that holding on can make the difference between making millions and losing money.
“I cringe a little when I’m identified as a millionaire,” Dennis said after reading that his $250,000 contribution to Adlai Stevenson was the largest individual political gift ever in Illinois. That kind of money making put him squarely at the center of Wall Street alongside George Soros, who was making $100 million, and then junk bond king Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham Lambert, […]
It’s tough.