The Way of the Turtle: Curtis Michael Faith

Curtis Michael Faith has positioned himself as the most successful TurtleTrader (see more). This is false.

Curtis Faith started a firm called Acceleration Capital with Yuri Plyam that quickly tanked. Faith talked about that firm’s beginning:

…I approached Yuri Plyam at Castle Trading several weeks ago about the possibility of our partnering to form a series of commodities pools targeted at the investor with between $25K and $1 million.

Curtis Faith was a managing member of Acceleration Capital. Curtis Faith and Yuri Plyam are both listed principals and registered Associated Persons of Acceleration Capital, LLC (PDF):

The Managing Members of the partnership are Curtis Michael Faith (Mr. Faith), and Yuri Plyam (Mr. Plyam). They will supervise all the Partnership’s investment and administrative functions. Currently, the managing members have not invested in the pool, but reserve the right to do so in the future. Curtis M. Faith is a managing member of Acceleration Capital, LLC, an investment management company and the General Partner of the Partnership.

Hedge Fund Alert ran the headline “Commodities Whiz Back in Business”:

Curtis Faith, a trader who cut his teeth under commodities luminary Richard Dennis, has started his own managed-futures fund. Faith launched his Acceleration Mercury 4X last month with a small amount of cash. He has just now started to market the vehicle and believes he can raise $100 million by year end – although he hasn’t set a formal fund raising goal.

This excerpt appeared in HedgeWorld Daily News:

Mr. Faith manages the fund with Yuri Plyam, managing member of Acceleration Capital and president of Castle Trading Inc., Northridge, Calif. Mr. [Curtis] Faith also is…a managing member of Turtle Trading Software, according to the firm’s web site. Mr. [Curtis] Faith previously worked with noted futures trader Richard Dennis and had taken a 15-year break from the business, he said.

This relationship was discussed online: screen shot.

Acceleration Capital Barred by United States Government

Acceleration Capital’s performance history (EXCEL) showed significant losses from April 2004 until July 2005. Routine NFA examinations of Acceleration Capital started on August 22, 2005. Curtis Faith’s NFA associate member status, associated person status and principal status were withdrawn August 23, 2005.

Acceleration Capital permanently surrendered registration with the CFTC via settlement in January 2007 for what the CFTC believed were violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Curtis Michael Faith Second Arrest