How I Made
$2,000,000
In
The Stock Market
by
Nicolas Darvas
Publisher’s Foreword
How This Book Came to Be
It was in the issue of May 25, 1959, that Time Magazine devoted
almost a full page in its Business Section to the extraordinary stockmarket
story of a dancer— Nicolas Darvas.
Time told how this complete non-professional, ". . . who ignores
tips, financial stories and brokers' letters," was able to make himself a
millionaire several times over through the investment methods he
developed.
This article raised a lot of eyebrows among Wall Streeters who were
shocked by Mr. Darvas’ disregard for many of the long-accepted,
ordinary investment practices to which they were accustomed. But it
also fired the interest and imagination of thousands of investors across
the country.
We at the AMERICAN RESEARCH COUNCIL, publishers of many of
the most widely-used and authoritative investment and business guides,
were also impressed by Time's brief outline of Mr. Darvas' successful
investment methods. As a result, we decided to approach Mr. Darvas
about writing a book describing his techniques. This was not easy—to
find him, our chief editor had to track him down in Paris where he and
his partner, Julia, were starring on a French television program. There
we discovered the remarkable set of circumstances that were to make
this unique book possible.
First, Mr. Darvas is a showman. His dance act is one of the most
exciting international acts in show-business history, and he and his
sister Julia have starred in some 34 countries. He is accustomed to being
constantly in the spotlight of public attention. Therefore, he had no
hesitation, as might many private individuals, in making public the
details of the stock transactions, which went into his making a fortune.
Perhaps never before in history has any individual so fully exposed his
financial dealings to the public eye.
Second, it turned out that Mr. Darvas is far more than a spectacular
dancer. He is a highly literate individual with a solid background in
economics and sociology gained at the University of Budapest; a former
sportswriter, journalist and crossword-puzzle editor in his native
country; and therefore thoroughly qualified to write a book.
As a result, the COUNCIL now takes pride in presenting one of the
most extraordinary success stories in the history of Wall Street. It is
especially significant not only because this investment record was made
by a true nonprofessional and "outsider" who was investing for that
legendary "second income", but also because the profits he made were
not the result of a lucky killing or chance tip.
On the contrary, the investment methods that eventually made Mr.
Darvas a millionaire were the result of hard-won experience, years of
mistakes and learning from those mistakes. These specific, highly
practical methods can serve as a useful guide to every individual investor.
We think that Mr. Darvas' techniques, especially his unique "Techno-
Fundamentalist Theory," and many of his pithy stock-market maxims—"I
just jog along with the trend trailing my stop-loss insurance behind me."
"There are no good or bad stocks, there are only rising and falling stocks."
"I can become a diagnostician but I can never become a prophet." — will
become an accepted part of the pages of Wall Street history.
To further clarify Mr. Darvas' approach, the COUNCIL has drawn up
and added to his book a number of charts showing his operations in the
major stocks that helped him make over $2,000,000 in the stock market
in a period of 18 months dating from when he first successfully applied
his perfected theory.
Mr. Darvas is still a dancer, because that is his profession; and he is still an
investor, because he enjoys it and still makes money at it. Everything about
him is unorthodox. He has no office, not even a desk for his financial
dealings. He works from his hotel room or the bar in the Georges V in
Paris, the Dorchester in London or the Plaza Hotel in New York. When
he is in New York, his favorite city, he sits every evening at his usual
table in the fashionable Oak Bar of the Plaza Hotel with a newspaper page,
a telegram, and some figures on a half-sheet of paper. He appears to be
relaxing like the others around him—but actually he is studying stock
prices and analyzing the market with the brilliant approach he has evolved
over the past few years and which has brought him millions.
The story of Nicolas Darvas is one of the astonishing legends of today's
America. We are proud to be able to publish it in a book, which we
believe will be a stock-market classic for many years to come.
Table of Contents
The Gambler
Chapter 1. Canadian Period 8
The Fundamentalist
Chapter 2. Entering Wall Street 17
Chapter 3. My First Crisis 30
The Technician
Chapter 4. Developing the Box Theory 36
Chapter 5. Cables Round the World 45
The Techno-Fundamentalist
Chapter 6. During the Baby-Bear Market 56
Chapter 7. The Theory Starts to Work 63
Chapter 8. My First Half-Million 73
Chapter 9. My Second Crisis 80
Chapter 10. Two Million Dollars 87
Interview with Time Magazine 95
Appendix
Cables 99
Charts 108
Index of Stocks 124
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