Michael Covel’s Official Site

A novel financing scheme used by Bear Stearns’ hedge funds became a template for subprime disaster.

Feedback tonight:

I am in the trading department of Norway’s Statoil and observing the behaviour of ‘professional’ traders everyday, I have no doubts that what you wrote in Trend Following and The Complete TurtleTrader holds true. For years I have been pondering on a ‘better’ way to approach the markets and I believe the trend following concept is my ‘holy grail’, albeit one that involves hard work, preparation and stomach churning volatility. You deserve praise for enlightening the world with the concept.

I received some feedback about “The Complete TurtleTrader” from a trader/money manager who has been at it for 15+ years:

Michael, spent a lot of time with the book this evening, you’ve done a good job. [In] some ways it would have been better if the book was written in the early 90’s for those who were following the whole Dennis story in real time, but it’s for those who were around then and I can see its value for younger guys as well. I would be interested to know what you think the book is about in a single sentence and what do you believe is its purpose?

“The Complete TurtleTrader” is an autopsy of a money-making legend, warts and all. It’s purpose is to educate the majority who don’t know and confirm for the minority who do know.

Who wants to bet their cash on this analysis?

My Japan travels of the last few years have forced me to revisit my youth and Ultraman. One particularly cool T-Rex inspired monster from Ultraman is here. My four & five-year-old nephews are of course excited every time I bring back more Ultraman monsters. But here is my question: how can I import these things? While most American kids are unfamiliar with Ultraman, I am willing to bet that if I have thousands of these monsters they will sell like hot cakes (for a premium) in the States. Work for Bandai? Drop me a line!

No shortage of information here.

In “The Complete TurtleTrader” I tell the story of seeing Jerry Parker’s original office outside Richmond, Virginia for the first time. Just finding the place was an adventure. While Richmond was only ninety miles from my house and I had a street address, there were no MapQuest turn-by-turn driving directions available around 1994. I used a good old-fashioned hard copy map from AAA. While I got down to the general area in ninety minutes, I spent another two hours in rural Virginia trying to find his office.

Finally, I stopped into a local country bank and asked if they had ever heard of Parker’s firm Chesapeake Capital (remember, I had no appointment to visit Chesapeake, I was just dropping in, hence I did not know where I was going). At first I was met with blank stares in the bank, but then one lady said that Chesapeake might be a ‘mile up the street’. She was right. Upon reflection I was struck by the fact that while she kind of knew where Chesapeake was located she had no clue what they did. She was probably making $35,000 a year (nothing wrong with that), but at the same time Jerry Parker was literally a baseball throw away making $35 million a year. While I might sound manic, my first thought was just to shake her and say, ‘don’t you get who is working down the road? Forget teller jobs, go be an intern for Parker!’

I did not meet Parker that summer day. My first face to face did not come until December 1995 at Parker’s new suburban Richmond office (about 18 months later). I had pestered him for an informational interview for some time, and finally his assistant Jonathan Craven responded with the good news that my persistence had paid off. Parker’s private office was surprisingly barren except for a small glass turtle on his desk. We talked about Wall Street in general terms.

Yet before the allotted 30-minutes was up, I did capitalize on the face-to-face opportunity by looking at Parker straight in the eye and asking for confirmation of who had won the Barings Bank sweepstakes earlier in the year. My proffer of a ‘name’, garnered a raised eyebrow, but his one word answer was confirmation. In that instant much of my understanding of trend following trading was solidified.

Later, the broker Parker recommended had me over to his suburban Richmond, Virginia home for chili. This broker was a transplanted Chicagoan who was clearly enjoying financial success in the Deep South (I remember his cool indoor pool). He was a broker archetype: a down to earth, everyman. At one point he mentioned that Parker had given pointers to one of his distant ‘relatives’ in trend following (the relative was by way of a distant marriage). It would be years before I knew he was talking about second generation Turtle Salem Abraham (who is in my book).

My path did not cross Parker’s again for years, long after the website TurtleTrader.com was established. For this visit, Parker, John Hoade, Keith Byers, his IT head and I met in his conference room at his Forest Avenue office. The furnishings of his sparse conference room gave no indication of what Chesapeake Capital did except for a huge Swiss alphorn leaning against the wall. Its ‘thank you’ engraving to Parker and Chesapeake Capital from a Swiss ‘concern’ spoke volumes about his firm’s reach.

Why the meeting with me to begin with? Chesapeake Capital was a billion dollar fund at the time, but they still wanted fresh ideas. They were investigating whether the Internet could enhance their business, and if so, how to best use it. Our meeting must have given them some good food for thought because shortly thereafter Parker sought to acquire the domain trendfollowing.com from me. It was a wise move not to part with it, since that domain name became a catalyst in launching my first book ‘Trend Following’ four years later.

Parker’s firm today has no web presence to speak of, but that has not hurt them. He is still far and away the most successful Turtle by a long country mile.

More to come.

Writing “The Complete TurtleTrader” was a roller coaster ride; a journey filled with unexpected insights from disparate sources, insights that often connected in unpredictable ways. At times it seemed as though I was playing a fantasy video game, where the secrets clues and hidden meanings kept popping up each step of the way. By the time the ride was over, it was clear that this was a story some people wanted told and others did not.

However, before my book there was a website. Most people probably don’t remember, but it was TurtleTrader.com that revived the Turtle legend for a new generation. Gibbons Burke of Futures magazine wrote back in 1998: ‘While the proprietors [of TurtleTrader.com] indeed are capitalizing on the Dennis trading legend, they do so in exceedingly good taste and without a trace of snake oil. The message is open, honest, straightforward and makes no hyped-up promises. It sticks to the facts. It is one of the best system trading sites for futures traders I have seen.’

Burke wasn’t the only one to notice TurtleTrader.com. David Penn weighed in from Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine in 2003: ‘As one of the administrators of TurtleTrader.com suggested in e-mail, all Turtle trading amounts to, in the end, is trend-following. Indeed, there were successful trend-followers long before Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt’s Turtle trading experiment.’

Shortly thereafter my book project was launched and I quickly came up against resistance. Others had been down that road too. In conversation with Jack Schwager about his ‘Silence of the Turtles’ chapter in his book ‘The New Market Wizards’, he was quick to remind me how little substantive comment he received from Turtles when writing his books.

In 2006, however, it seemed things had finally changed. One Turtle said he would be happy to do an interview, by phone if necessary. Another said that he would be happy to discuss the Turtle experience. Another Turtle only wanted to provide written answers to questions. Yet another said he wouldn’t mind if the circumstances were right. Ultimately those responses resulted in thoughtful, incisive interviews.

Moreover, as the research process gained steam, the more Turtles I discovered. Names of Turtle students never before mentioned in the press popped up. For example, there was Rudolf Papirnik. Robert Moss, Dennis’ trading floor chief, called Papirnik a Turtle. Papirnik worked for Dennis before, during and after the Turtle program. He definitely had ‘Turtle knowledge’. Jim DiMaria backed Moss’ view on Papirnik as a Turtle too.

Many Turtles were quick to express their concern that Dennis would be portrayed as their primary if not only trading teacher. They didn’t want me to diminish the importance of Bill Eckhardt. Jeff Gordon was emphatic, ‘Bill [Eckhardt]. Very smart guy. It seemed like every time he spoke, I learned something. And they’re very few people in the world that I have ever met that I can say that about. I was always learning things from him.’

Another of the more interesting side notes of the Turtle program was genesis of their original nickname. Mike Shannon added a twist to the legend, ‘Our original name, in the first year of our existence, was the ‘Disciples.’ Because it was the name, at the time, of a prominent street gang on Chicago’s West Side, we agreed to go with the ‘Turtle’ idea.’ Accurate? Lucy Wyatt Mattinen, one of the two female Turtles, said the name actually traced back to a fondness by Dennis of the music group ‘The Turtles’! The Singapore Turtle story? Well, I have now heard three versions about the origination of the Turtle name!

Despite these colorful nuggets the big picture was that some Turtles just did not want an objective treatment of their story made public. For example, the confidentiality agreement signed years ago by all Turtles has long expired. The agreement, while not word for word in my book, is public. However, in 2006 when trying to interview Philip Lu, who was now working as a college teacher, I was thrown a curve ball. Lu, via his Edgewood College email address, was blunt, ‘It is my belief that my confidentiality agreement with Richard Dennis is still in force. Therefore I do not give interviews.’

Lu is an intelligent man (graduate of Brown). He made a lot of money as a Turtle and is well respected by many other Turtles. One Turtle sprang to Lu’s defense saying that he could have been in the same league as Parker and Rabar. ‘Phil actively chose not to take over a certain amount of money. He didn’t want to manage a billion dollars.’ Taking another perspective Sam Denardo clearly respected Lu for saying their confidentiality agreement was still in tact. ‘He knows that that system can still work. And the more people that use it, the less effective it’s going to be. He probably feels blessed like a lot of us that we’ve had the experience.’

The desire to keep things silent did not stop with Lu. During 2006, as I completed research for my book, I sent out final requests for interviews. Many Turtles agreed to talk. However, there were some no’s. One Turtle responded by asking who gave away his email address. Another Turtle responded via email that he was not interested. Months later that same Turtle appeared to warm up when his assistant asked for a list of those who had agreed to cooperate. A detailed response to that question brought back, ‘no.’

Unknown to me at the time that exact list was the one used to contact prior interviews to get them to stop talking (which did not work). Was I thinking that some of this reaction was beyond paranoid? Yes! I kept asking myself, ‘What could be so negative about their story? If they knew a book was being published why not get their story out there?’ Particularly since those who agreed to talk said they did so for that exact reason.

However, the book is out now and the reception, save for one Turtle, has been very positive. For example, yet another email from someone in the know came in unsolicited the other day. The subject of the email was “The Silence of the Turtles”:

Dear Michael:

XXX
XXX Capital

I asked that same individual if he/she liked my book. The response:

“Regarding your new book ["The Complete TurtleTrader"], I can say that after hearing the turtle story many times from many of the people that are part of the story and after reading many articles about such story, this is by far the most entertaining, inspiring, extensive, and honest story of the turtles I have ever read.”

It is nice to hear the positive feedback, but I still wonder about the energy expended to try and keep assorted Turtle details locked away. Some Turtles definitely lost sight of the big picture - their great inspirational story and tremendous success (at least for most Turtles). That said, I always knew criticism would come my way from a minority. So what, that’s healthy. The outspoken billionaire Mark Cuban has said:

“The easiest thing in the world to avoid is criticism. All you have to do is nothing. For those of us who set goals and want to have an impact in the business world in particular, criticism is part of the job description. You have to be able to be able to take it and sometimes you can’t be afraid to dish it out. If someone puts in the effort and challenges the content and makes me rethink my position, I come out ahead.”

I agree 100%. The positives and the negatives of the Turtle story are what make it both entertaining and memorable.

More to come.

As I mention in my book there were two female Turtles. This was news to many as the lone female Turtle for all these years had been positioned as Liz Cheval, but my research showed that to be incorrect. Lucy Wyatt Mattinen was a Turtle as well. And it was other Turtles who were the source of confirming Wyatt Mattinen’s Turtle existence. But like everything with the Turtles there was a more detailed back story!

I state in my book that Cheval elected to not speak for “The Complete TurtleTrader”. She did, however, email me during my book writing process:

Michael,

Thanks.
Liz

Worse than Cheval saying “no” was not even being able to find Lucy Wyatt Mattinen to ask her for an interview during my book writing process. However, once the book was published I quickly heard from Wyatt Mattinen. She was incensed that she was described as “doing her nails” by another Turtle. In no uncertain terms she educated me about her long time involvement with Rich Dennis and Bill Eckhardt. She laid out her trading successes. Clearly, Wyatt Mattinen, while not an active fund manager today, has lived an interesting life. While she did not agree with the “nails” comment she did state in no uncertain terms that my book was bullseye accurate

However, little did I know I had stirred the pot by declaring that there were two female Turtles. In fact, my December 2007 article in Trader Monthly revealed the unexpected. Trader Monthly, in verifying my article details with Cheval, was told by Cheval that she was the only female Turtle. Trader Monthly stood by the notion of two female Turtles and referred to “women” in the article.

Why all of the detail? There are quite a few who are interested in the Turtle back story. For example, once my book galleys, the drafts, started making the rounds, feedback from one person in particular struck a chord. Bob Pardo is a seasoned trader. He is also a skeptic, the kind of person you want to read your book in order to understand the weaknesses. Pardo does not believe in praise as much as constant improvement. And, although his bluntness probably rattles many, his honesty was welcomed.

Pardo confronted me with a number of questions postulating why some Turtles were averse to talking and he wondered if there weren’t further lessons to be drawn from Dennis’ managed money efforts. He also saw the apparent paranoia from some Turtles as interesting and worthy of further exploration. So in many ways the back stories I have posted are in response to the likes of Pardo and many others who have asked questions since my book’s release.

More to come.

The Straits Times Non-fiction Bestsellers for December 16, 2007:

1. (1) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
2. (2) English As It Is Broken by The Straits Times
3. (3) Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
4. (5) Marley And Me: Life And Love With The World’s Worst Dog
5. (6) Think Big And Kick Ass by Donald Trump and Bill Zanker
6. (-) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
7. (8) The Complete TurtleTrader by Michael W. Covel
8. (-) Having It All by John Assaraf
9. (4) The Age Of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
10. (9) I Can Make You Rich by Paul McKenna