Trading Authority Opens Round One of Historic 'New Turtles' Programme
An initial crowd of around 100 hopefuls attended the Training Traders trading floor in the City of London today to run the gauntlet of a selection process they hope will net them the ultimate trading apprenticeship...
Applicants for veteran trader Mike Baghdady's 'New Turtles Trading' programme heard a talk outlining his motivations and trading experiences before sitting an elaborate test designed to identify seven key characteristics in the respondents.
The test - which will be offered to everyone who applied for the apprenticeships - features true or false questions and a range of open questions covering personality and character. It is broadly designed to cover existing knowledge of and attitudes towards trading as well as give clues about an individual's personality traits.
However, Baghdady stressed that prior knowledge about trading was not required to be considered for selection, and that in any case, those chosen would be required to forget everything they'd ever learnt about trading, if picked.
Alex Dale, 18, a Sales Executive from Shropshire said he came to the event after reading about the programme in the press.
"It took me two hours on the train to come here, and my employer warned me that if I missed work, they'd fire me; but I feel I can do something much bigger than I'm doing at the moment, and this could well be it," he said.
Baghdady's bold recreation of veteran Chicago trader Richard Dennis' trading experiment in the 80s received over 8,000 applications before the deadline closed in December.
The trader of 35 years remains inspired by Dennis' legendary quest that set out to prove that successful trading can be taught to anyone who can follow a set of rules.
"In the 80s, Dennis placed an advertisement in The New York Times stating 'prior experience not necessary' and took on apprentices including actors, security guards and blackjack players. Together, they made him around $175m profit on his initial investment," he explains.
"In the 'New Turtle Traders' programme, we're bringing this concept to the next generation of traders, using our own rule-based system to profit from today's turbulent financial marketplace."
Mike Baghdady's Price Behaviour methodology, used by top trading desks at institutional banks, indentifies winning trades by analysing the psychology of how people perceive price and value in the market.
The 8,000 applicants are being whittled down to just 10 successful 'New Turtles', who will begin trading with Baghdady and his team in mid-February. They will learn his unique Price Behaviour system before trading for a year using company money, with each apprentice budgeted for at $100,000 per head.
They will not be expected to take any losses, and will be allowed to keep a percentage of their winnings.
A website has been set-up to explain the Turtle Trader philosophy and the Apprentice Programme, here: http://www.newturtletraders.com
Mike Baghdady is a key market analyst, syndicated magazine columnist and commentator for financial television stations. He was apprentice to Alan Shaw, widely considered to be the father of modern Technical Analysis learning, at Salomon Smith Barney before reaching the pinnacle of his professional career as Head Trader on the New York Board of Trade.
