Guide · Candles & chart patterns
Does Turtle Soup Plus One work?
Across 375 stocks, Turtle Soup Plus One cut the worst fall on 100%, beat buying and holding on risk-adjusted return on 7% and on raw return on 10%. Mainly a seatbelt: it softened the big falls on most stocks, but usually gave up return to do it.
What it predicts
Buy when a stock closes at a new 20-day low and climbs back above the old low the next day, betting the breakdown was a trap. It turns the Turtles' breakout rule on its head.
- Day 1: the close is below the lowest low of the prior 20 sessions, and that low was set at least 3 sessions earlier.
- Day 2: in at the close if the close is back above that old 20-day low.
- Out at the close if a close falls below the lower of the day-1 and day-2 lows (the stop), or after 6 sessions in the trade.
Candles & chart patterns plays bet that a short pattern of bars can show a move running out of steam. The family guide
How to use it
- Expect to be wrong more often than right: only 44% of its calls worked. Its results come from the size of the winners, so following it means sitting through strings of small losses.
- It sits in cash much of the time (holding on about 2% of days), so judge it on risk-adjusted return rather than on matching a rising market.
- It worked best on Software & devices (18% beat holding on risk-adjusted return) and worst on Micro caps (0%).
- Use it as one input. Your signal combines the plays you count with the other factors you weight into one call.
When it worked
Turtle Soup Plus One did best against holding in the 2008 crash (+42% median gap) and worst in the 2020–21 rally (−43%). Median gap in return against holding the same stock (per year over stretches longer than 18 months; crypto excluded).
| 2008 crash | Recovery 2009–19 | COVID drop | 2020–21 rally | 2022 bear | Since Oct 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turtle Soup Plus One | +42% | −15% | +25% | −43% | +17% | −15% |
Where it worked
By kind of stock: how often it beat holding on risk-adjusted return, and the median Sharpe ratio gap.
| Group | Beat holding, risk-adjusted | Sharpe gap |
|---|---|---|
| Software & devices | 18% | -0.49 |
| Indexes & ETFs | 14% | -0.55 |
| Energy & power | 12% | -0.41 |
| Industrials & rentals | 11% | -0.37 |
| Metals & mining | 10% | -0.43 |
| Consumer & retail | 6% | -0.51 |
| Healthcare | 6% | -0.39 |
| Real estate | 5% | -0.39 |
| Industrials & materials | 2% | -0.51 |
| Sectors | 0% | -0.40 |
| Big tech | 0% | -0.89 |
| Semiconductors | 0% | -0.66 |
| Media & telecom | 0% | -0.32 |
| Financials | 0% | -0.65 |
| Micro caps | 0% | -0.71 |
Where it helped most
Sharpe ratio gap against holding, stocks with 3+ years of history
Right now
Turtle Soup Plus One holds 13 of 377 names as of the Oct 13, 2026 close.
Changed its call in the last two weeks:
Backtest results since 2005 (or as long as each stock has traded), against holding the same stock over the same dates, after 0.05% per switch. Past results don't promise future ones. This analysis does not constitute trading advice. Please meet with an advisor or independently review sources before making any decision.