--- title: The Turtle Trading Strategy Made Fortunes in the 1980s.... description: A trader backtested the classic Turtle Trading Donchian breakout system (20-bar and 55-bar entries used by Richard Dennis's famous 1980s trading experiment) on... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-turtle-trading-strategy-made-fortunes-in-the-1980s-does-it-still-work--icrglj2ny twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Turtle Trading Strategy Made Fortunes in the 1980s. Does It Still Work? | daily.dev og:description: A trader backtested the classic Turtle Trading Donchian breakout system (20-bar and 55-bar entries used by Richard Dennis's famous 1980s trading experiment) on... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-turtle-trading-strategy-made-fortunes-in-the-1980s-does-it-still-work--icrglj2ny og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/iCrgLJ2ny.png og:image:alt: The Turtle Trading Strategy Made Fortunes in the 1980s. Does It Still Work? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Turtle Trading Strategy Made Fortunes in the 1980s. Does It Still Work? **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A trader backtested the classic Turtle Trading Donchian breakout system (20-bar and 55-bar entries used by Richard Dennis's famous 1980s trading experiment) on six years of modern EURUSD H1 data. Every period tested, from 5 to 55 bars, produced negative expected value, and adding session filters, ATR volatility filters, or varying stop widths failed to make the system profitable. The classic 20/10 configuration returned -0.061R per trade, a 34.2% win rate, and a six-year cumulative return of -14.8%. Proposed reasons include HFT market-making eating false breakouts, EURUSD's shorter mean-reverting character versus commodities, and the strategy's fame causing crowded, self-defeating signals. The piece concludes that Turtle principles like ATR-based position sizing and mechanical discipline still hold value, but the specific breakout entry signal has lost its edge on FX, then pitches an affiliate prop-trading signup deal. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does the original Turtle Trading Donchian breakout strategy still work on forex today? No, backtesting the classic 20-bar and 55-bar Donchian breakout system on six years of EURUSD H1 data with realistic trading costs produced negative expected value across every period tested, from 5 to 55 bars. The classic 20-bar entry with 10-bar exit configuration returned -0.061R per trade, a 34.2% win rate, and a six-year cumulative return of -14.8%. _daily.dev surfaces backtesting and quant strategy write-ups for traders re-testing old systems against current markets._ ### Can filters or wider stops fix a losing Donchian breakout strategy on EURUSD? No, session filters, ATR volatility filters, and wider stop widths only marginally reduced losses but never turned the Donchian breakout system profitable on EURUSD H1. A 3x ATR stop was the best variant tested at -0.037R per trade, still negative, and the European plus US session overlap filter cut trade count to about 15 per year without reaching profitability. _Traders tuning breakout systems can compare filter and stop-width experiments like these on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [One perfect strategy, or fifteen mediocre ones? I measured both.](https://daily.dev/posts/one-perfect-strategy-or-fifteen-mediocre-ones-i-measured-both--gzy2phrqm) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Build a Positioning-Based Crude Oil Strategy in Python \[Full Handbook\]](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-a-positioning-based-crude-oil-strategy-in-python-full-handbook--8corzfczg) · freeCodeCamp · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#fintech](https://daily.dev/tags/fintech) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-turtle-trading-strategy-made-fortunes-in-the-1980s-does-it-still-work--icrglj2ny) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Turtle Trading Strategy Made Fortunes in the 1980s. 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The classic 20-bar entry with 10-bar exit configuration returned -0.061R per trade, a 34.2% win rate, and a six-year cumulative return of -14.8%. daily.dev surfaces backtesting and quant strategy write-ups for traders re-testing old systems against current markets."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Can filters or wider stops fix a losing Donchian breakout strategy on EURUSD?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No, session filters, ATR volatility filters, and wider stop widths only marginally reduced losses but never turned the Donchian breakout system profitable on EURUSD H1. A 3x ATR stop was the best variant tested at -0.037R per trade, still negative, and the European plus US session overlap filter cut trade count to about 15 per year without reaching profitability. Traders tuning breakout systems can compare filter and stop-width experiments like these on daily.dev."}}]} ```