Street Stories: Managed Futures
Richard Dennis taught the Turtles and is a famous Trend Follower
Richard Dennis had an office tucked away on the antiquated twenty-third floor of the Chicago Board of Trade building. The outside hallway had dingy brown paneling. Etched in small lettering in his office door was 'C&D Commodities, Richard J. Dennis and Company.' No marble. No glass. Immediately next door was a grimy looking mens room. The office entrance disguised the performance of an individual who, in his own estimate, made between $100 million and $200 million.
Magazine Excerpt
I don't think trading strategies are as vulnerable to not working if people know about them, as most traders believe. If what you are doing is right, it will work even if people have a general idea about it. I always say you could publish rules in a newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline.
Richard Dennis
...he placed classified ads proclaiming 'trader wanted,' he got some 1,000 responses from people eager to learn his methods. He settled on fewer than two dozen novices--among them two professional gamblers and a fantasy-game designer--and after a two-week training program, he gave them money to trade under his firm's auspices. Several went on to become top commodity-fund managers, including Jerry Parker of Chesapeake Capital Corp., who now manages more than US$1 billion. 'It was sink or swim. Sort of an experiment,' recalls Parker, a former accountant. Dennis ran the training, Parker says, 'because he wanted to have a certain chunk of money traded using systematic rules' while he went on and tried out new techniques.
Business Week
Unlike Eckhardt (and most other savants) Dennis believed that trading could be taught and learned. Eckhardt belonged to the you're born with it or you're not camp. [which proved very wrong]
Barclays Report
Articles Featuring Dennis
Financial Trader, 10-97
