Turtle Soup.

Spending the day idly trading stocks and pulling in millions of dollars really is the way to go. That is the main reason books like this are compelling. Unfortunately, as you read through this book, you come away with a sense that either this guy is a genius, or just really lucky. There is no way that an average shotgun investor who only places trades after hours and can look at his selections for just minutes a day could pull this off. Interesting stuff nonetheless.

Covel begins with a saying from Benjamin Graham, a guru of value investing, that analysts and fund managers cannot beat the market because they are the market. Essentially, when people trade frequently in the market it is a zero-sum game, or nearly so. For every winner, there is a loser. The person who makes the money, in general takes it away from people who lose money. For long term investors this is not the case, but the explanation is a bit to in depth for this post.

This is the story of how Richard Dennis, a wealthy commodities trader, placed an ad in a newspaper and recruited "normal" individuals and taught them how to make millions by trading in methodical ways. Very similar to the movie Trading Places, he began this experiment as a bet to see if anyone could be a trader. The old nature versus nurture.

He educated the turtles, and gave them his own money to trade with. They did well as a group, and made millions. They were is essence momentum traders, which is the subject of book also by Covel. I don't believe this books leads to a particular stock, so there won't be a purchase with this one. Very good story though. Top notch. And Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy were great in Trading Places. If you like early 80's comedies, this one is for you.