Review : How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market

Book Title : How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
Author : Nicolas Darvas
Date of Publication : 1986



This stock trading book was touted as one of Wall Street Classic, and I believed it has lived up to its name.

Mr Nicolas Darvas was a famous dancer when he stumbled upon the fascinating world of stock market back in mid 1955. Just like most amateur stock traders who started trading, Mr Nicolas Darvas would buy up any stocks based on tips, rumors, broker’s tips and advisory newsletters, which would inevitably led to failure.

Then Mr Nicolas Darvas decided not to “gamble” his money away this way and developed a more fundamentalist approach in stock trading. That, however, led to his first crisis of a $9,000 loss.

But that loss led to his discovery of a technical approach in stock trading which let him recovered his losses. He later refined it to a more techno-fundamentalist approach which eventually earned him an amazing $2,000,000 from the stock market.

Mr Nicolas Darvas discovered a way to trade shares based on a technique he called “box theory”. He would pick the stocks he wanted to trade by carefully studying their price & volume action and would enter a trade when the price breakout from the top of the “box” . He would then let a winning stock run and adjust the “box” of this stock accordingly so that the “stop loss” would lock in his profits if the trend of the stock reverses. Mr Nicolas Darvas reiterated the importance of setting stop loss in every trades no matter how confident a trader feels. In fact, setting a stop loss in every trade has helped preserved his capital during the bear market.

Mr Nicolas Darvas gave ample examples of his real trades in the book to demonstrate his “box theory” trading technique and his trading discipline.

Conclusion : In short, a good book with a unique technique in stock trading with sound trading principles, you’ll like it.

You can read this wonderful book online by visiting here

You can also read further reviews of this book from Amazon.com before buying it. This book retails at $10.36 at Amazon.com

Yours Truly
Carol Leng

Rreview : How I Trade For a Living

Book Title : How I Trade For a Living
Author : Gary Smith
Date of Publication : 1999



This was the very first trading book that I have read. I remembered I was still very new to the stock market when I picked up this book. However, Mr Gary Smith's free-flowing writing style enabled me to understand the trading rules, principles and techniques shared by him.

In the prologue, Mr Gary Smith described the routines he would go through in every typical trading day. The steps he took might seem “boring” and mundane but after I started trading on my own for a period of time I realised that the steps he took every day were important. To be a good trader, I realised that he or she must have the discipline to monitor the market, especially the market indexes like the Dow, Standard & Poor’s (S & P), the Nasdaq 100 etc. diligently & consistently so as to equip oneself with the latest information about the market sentiments before making an important decision to enter a trade or to exit a trade. His diligence was revealed in how he described he would tape CNBC programs to review them when he weren’t available to watch them live.

Mr Gary Smith shared various kinds of sentiments indicators that he has tried and tested in his trading journey and the relevance of these indicators in his trading decision.

Mr Gary Smith used mainly pure price action (momentum & divergence) to trade mutual funds. Chapter 12, considered the most important chapter by Mr Gary Smith, detailed the various momentum & divergence patterns eg. V-bottom upside reversals, late-day upside price surges, Friday-to-Monday momentum etc. that he had used in his real trading between 1998 and early 1999 to show investors how he has harnessed this patterns to grow his portfolio. Frankly speaking, I have yet to find out whether such momentum patterns would be applicable to stock trading, but Mr Gary Smith did mention that such momentum patterns might be applicable when trading tech-related futures & options, though he traded mainly tech-related funds when such patterns evolve.

Conclusion : In my opinion, I find this trading book an interesting & informative read for investors of any levels. If you are a momentum trader, this would certainly be an important book for you, especially the different momentum trading patterns shared by Mr Gary Smith in Chapter 12. Do tell me your experiences and your opinion after reading this book.

You can also read further reviews of this book from Amazon.com before buying it. This book retails at $30.40 at Amazon.com

Yours Truly
Carol Leng