"Are great traders born or can they be taught?"

TurtleTrader® is the definitive destination for all that is trend following trading & original Turtle trading. Our trading systems are for stocks, futures, FX, ETFs & commodities designed with one goal: delivering the chance to make the big money for all traders in all countries.

Sign up for a FREE

Trend Following DVD

Free Newsletter

Our e-letter; 15,000+ readers!

Introduction

Trading Courses

TurtleTrader Book

Trend Following Book

Our Friends

Retracements: Fibonacci for Trading is Fool's Gold


Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci

Some traders mistakenly want the discount. They do not want to buy rising markets; instead they look for bargains or market retracements as a place to buy:

In implementing the methodology, what do you do when the market gaps over your next unit entry and after a couple days has not retraced back to give you the entry. There is a good chance that some of that will happen tomorrow morning but only time will tell if we retrace or not.

TurtleTrader Student
Email Sent Sunday December 14, 2003.

You want to buy on strength and sell on market weakness. Waiting for a retracement is never a smart strategy:

Certainly when you have a position with a profit. Anytime the market goes up a reasonable amount - say a strong day's work - after you've put on a position, it's probably worth adding to that position. I wouldn't want to wait for a retracement. That is everyone's favorite technique - to buy something strong that retraces. I don't see any justification in the statistics for that. When beans are at $8.00 and go to $9.00, if the choice is to buy them at $9.00 or buy them if they retrace to $8.80, I'd rather buy them at $9.00. They may never retrace to $8.80. Statistics would show that you make more money buying them and not waiting for a retracement.
Richard Dennis

Waiting for a retracement is simply another form of losers averaging losers.

Even worse than the basic error of waiting for a retracement are the people fixated on Fibonacci retracements. The Golden Mean will not help you determine entry and exit. The idea that you can use Fibonacci sequences to predict retracements is a favorite ruse of market gurus. It is the holiest of Holy Grails.

NOTE: If you want to learn about trend following trading in general there is one definitive text: the bestselling classic "Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions in Up or Down Markets" by Michael Covel. If you want to learn about the most famous group of trained trend following traders, the Turtles and their teacher Richard Dennis, "The Complete TurtleTrader" by Michael Covel is the only complete biography (with all of the Turtle rules) available. If you want to learn trend following techniques and systems through advanced home study and or seminars click here.

Trend Following

Covel's Bestseller

'Broke' on DVD

Covel's Documentary

TurtleTrader

Inside Turtle Story

We passionately teach the lessons of the great traders who have made their trend following fortunes over the last four decades. More info on seminars and consulting.

Trading Courses

8 DVDs / 7 CDs

  • Huge Profits up & down!
  • 3 hardcover manuals

6 DVDs / 6 CDs

  • Huge Profits up & down!
  • 3 hardcover manuals

3 DVDs / 6 CDs

  • Huge Profits up & down mkts
  • 3 hardcover manuals

Market Wizard Interviews by Michael Covel


  • Jim Rogers on the Fed con.

  • Market Wizard Larry Hite discusses dating odds.

  • Poker pro Howard Lederer on poker & trading the markets.

  • Trader Salem Abraham talks about the unexpected.

Site design: