I ordered this book and read it with eager anticipation.

However, I still haven’t made money with it.

And I’m planning to use it on FOREX, not on stocks.

In the beginning of the book, the author points out mistakes that I actually have made. So that got me interested because I agreed with the author.

Then he talks about his box system.

The idea is that he abandoned any fundamental analysis and just looked for stocks that (for unknown reasons) happen to be STEADILY (day after day) rising in price. The strength of Darvas’es system is not in some special indicators, but in trading WELL BEHAVED stocks.

Here is what I like about the book:

1) He doesn’t use ANY technical indicators, not even a moving average. He just uses boxes — trading ranges, defined by support/resistance lines. No moving averages, no MACD, no Bollinger bands. nothing! Just volume and price ranges (boxes). Because he doesn’t use indicators, his system is simple.

2) It’s very humorous that he advises to trade long term, and not trade short term (don’t jump in and out of the market like a grasshopper). I agree with him. On the short term charts, the profits are smaller and the trader needs to spend more time monitoring the trade.

3) I believe that his box system can be used in the FOREX market, for example trading the GBP/USD on the 1 hour chart.

4) The book is funny and he even talks about his girlfriend Julia, who sometimes is cheating on him.

5) In the search engine Google, under the image search, I found pictures of Nicolas Darvas and his dancing partner Julia.

6) In the international movie database imdb, I found information that Darvas and Julia actually star in a 1950’s movie called Toast of the Town. They play themselves. (This is not related to trading, but I think it’s funny trivia.)

7) The book gives me hope that I too may become rich, although this will not happen soon.

Here is what I don’t like about the book:

1) He doesn’t talk about the FOREX market. This is because in Darvas’es time, the FOREX didn’t exist yet.

2) He is saying that the London Stock Exchange doesn’t provide enough info to be used with his system. This is old information, because the London Stock exchange does provide enough information now.

3) He believes that volume breakouts can help you find stocks that will go up. However, I don’t think that volume is a very strong indicator. (And in FOREX there is no volume data available).

4) He states that if you have less than $5,000 you shouldn’t get started trading. This is old news. There are mini accounts, both FOREX and CFD, where you can start with only $500, or even less.

5) The book is an autobiography, not a trading tutorial.

Overall: buy and try this book. But I personally will apply it on the FOREX market, because the FOREX gives me more leverage, liquidity and 24 hr trading. I just made more than 700 pips on a GBP/USD long trade. But it is only in my demo account for now. Hopefully, when I’m fully confident, I’ll do it with real money.

P.S. In case you didn’t know, Nicolas Darvas died in 1977.