Does Turtle Trading Still Work? What 6.7 Years Showed
The short version. On the data I have, no: the original Turtle trading rules lost 37.9% on 11 Exness markets and 57.7% on 26, from January 2020 to September 2026, with the code checked three ways. But 6.7 years is a short window for a trend system, and the result is mostly one-sided: long trades made money in every market group, short trades lost in every group. The tempting fix, dropping the…
In the six and a half years spanning from January 2020 to September 2026, the original Turtle trading rules performed poorly on 37.9% of 11 Exness markets and 57.7% of 26 markets, according to wire material examining the system's effectiveness. The rules were found to be well-constructed engineering, as each rule had a number, a worked example, and only six points left open for testing.
However, even with the layers designed to manage risk, the system's edge was insufficient to generate profits consistently across all market groups. When shorts were removed, the long-only trades still outperformed in every market group, but this approach assumes that the rules already have an edge, which cannot be confirmed without unseen future data.
The six and a half year window is too short to determine if trend systems can generate profits consistently, as Turtle traders historically experienced losing stretches of a year or two. Additionally, trading on CFDs presented challenges such as swap costs, spreads, and data gaps that were not accounted for in the original 1983 experiment.
Despite these limitations, the Turtle system remains valuable as a teaching tool, demonstrating clear examples of a complete trading process, but its effectiveness is questionable in the current market conditions.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
