At the age of 39, after accumulating his fortune, Darvas documented his techniques in the book, How I Made 2,000,000 in the Stock Market. The book describes his unique “Box System”, which he used to buy and sell stocks. Darvas’ book remains a classic stock market text to this day.
Author’s Introduction:
I was standing in one of those modernistic telephone booths at Kennedy International Airport. A few feet away stood Charlie Stein with a beautiful girl. Charlie is president of the Lord Hardwick Corporation. He always has a beautiful girl at his side. And he seems to take special delight in introducing me to the girls and praising me in such a way that it somehow makes him more important because he knows me! There are usually no dividends for me in this upmanship, but today was no usual day. For, unseen by all of us, was another beautiful girl. She was invisible, and she stood nearby. Call her Lady Luck or call her Dame Circumstance.
Thus, for the first time, Charlie’s use of me proved useful to me. For it prompted the reissue of this book. While I was trying to reach my girlfriend in Paris on the phone and deciding that she was probably out cheating on me Charlie proceeded with his usual build-up of Nicolas Darvas. He kept repeating my name and, as always, he was loud. A stranger in the next phone booth stepped out and said to him, “Is that fellow really Darvas? I studied his book like a chemistry text and-would you believe it-I’ve already made more than one hundred thousand dollars with what I applied from what he wrote!”
I stepped out of the booth, and the stranger turned to me. “Why the hell is How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market out of print?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “I bought more than a dozen copies,” he continued, “but now I can’t seem to get another at any price. My only remaining copy is constantly being borrowed. Then I have to beg my friends to return it. They eventually do. But by now the book is in shambles.” The stranger held out his hand. “I want to thank you,” he said. “I’ve got to catch a plane or I’d buy you a dinner or some drinks. I want to tell you something. You might have made two million in the stock market, but you wouldn’t make two cents in the publishing business!”
With that he grabbed my hand, did a swivel turn, and was racing toward a departure gate. Then it hit me. I was dumb. Here, a decade later, I was still receiving a steady flow of mail in response to my book. Again and again, readers asked for clarification of certain points. Most of the questions were along the same lines. And the book was out of print! Time has a way with it. And time had proved out my approach to stock market speculation. My book had become a classic that was, in some cases, bringing as much as $20 a copy in the .. out of print” book market.
Had I been extraordinarily lucky? Had I been caught in the momentum of a runaway bull market in which even a fool could do no wrong? Or was my approach so sound that it would work in almost any market? The fact is that How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market has withstood the careful scrutiny of time.
Contents:
THE GAMBLER
- Canadian Period
THE FUNDAMENTALIST
- Entering Wall Street
- My First Crisis
THE TECHNICIAN
- Developing the Box Theory
- Cables Round the World
THE TECHNO-FUNDAMENTLIST
- During the Baby-Bear Market
- The Theory Starts to Work
- My First Half-Million
- My Second Crisis
- Two Million Dollars
