The "Turtles" were a group of traders trained by Richard Dennis on a bet as to whether or not trading success was a learned skill or something inate only in certain people. You can learn more about that story in the first Market Wizards book.
The turtle system is no secret. While the actual parameters of their system may be unknown (the turtles supposedly swore to keep their methods secret) it is basically a long term trend following system. Something like buy on a breakout of the highest high of the last x number of bars, sell on a stop and reverse with a signal in the opposite direction. There may be a few other things like money management rules thrown in there, but nothing magical here, just catching the big trends. That's why it worked so well in the commodity markets of the 70's and 80's...big trends. My understanding is that many of the original turtles have had problems since their earlier success. That must be the case, because the guy running the turtletrader website is now selling it instead of trading it. That's your first indication of a problem. Even Richard Dennis has had some terrible years of performance since those days. I believe that a trend following system like this can have a positive expectancy over a very long term, but you have to be very diversified (trade a basket of commodities so you are able to catch whatever is trending at the time), be happy with only a 30% winning percentage, and have VERY deep pockets, as the drawdowns will be huge. If you can stomach that, more power to you.
As has been stated in many other threads on this site...don't buy into the idea that there is some "secret" formula for trading success. If it worked, they wouldn't sell it, its as plain as that.
Good trading,
Kirk
Post Edit: I was writing this when Babak's post went up..sorry for the rehash, but it still applies.
