Turtle soup strategy explainedIntermediate

Fading failed breakouts of obvious highs and lows.

Simplified illustration, not real market data.

The idea

Breakout traders buy new highs and sell new lows, with stops just on the other side. When a breakout fails, those traders are trapped and their stops fuel the reversal. Turtle soup trades that reversal.

The rules

Price trades beyond an obvious high or low (for example the 20-bar extreme).
The candle closes back inside.
Enter against the breakout.
Stop beyond the wick, target a fixed R.

Variations traders use

Only fading levels that many traders watch (previous week, 20-day), or waiting for a structure shift on a lower timeframe before entering.

What testing shows

Fading every failed break tends to lose after costs, because many 'failures' become real trends. Filters such as a session window or a higher-timeframe range condition matter.

What it looks like on a real chart

Picked automatically from the backtest on real data: the latest winner and the latest loser. The numbered circles are the steps of the rules, in order. Losers are part of every strategy.

Winner +1.94REUR/USD · 1h · 2026-11-05 · Long

Loser -1.06REUR/USD · 1h · 2026-11-06 · Long

How WickCheck tests it

Buy when price sweeps the 20-bar low and closes back above it. Sell when price sweeps the 20-bar high and closes back below it. Stop at 1x ATR. Target 2R.

Test it on real data

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Full results on 5 markets: Turtle soup strategy explained.

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Education only, not financial advice. Definitions vary between teachers; these are ours, written for clarity.