The book was written decades ago for a mass audience that was curious, but largely uninformed, about the stock market. They wanted an easy way to profit from the market of the post-war era without suffering the losses tat the previous generation did in the 1930's. Its secret for success (as a book)was to tell an empathetic story that novice/failed traders could relate to and promise them a simple solution. Top the story off with a $2,000,000 happy ending, and you've got the makings for a bestseller.

It's a formula that still works. This book seems rather popular with most of its reviewers.

Darvas's autobiographical book, unfortunately, has a large element of fiction. It is a not-too-well kept secret that he greatly exaggerated the degree of his success as an investor--which diminishes his credibility. It is not that the ideas of buying stocks that are moving up or cutting your losses quickly are bad ideas, it is that such ideas should not be confused with having any understanding about the market. If stock prices were random: (1) the technique of cutting one's losses quickly would improve your results nonetheless, and (2) the idea of buying a stock that was moving up (a higher box) would be rendered meaningless.

Don't look for deep investment wisdom here. Look for a story about a trader that you may find amusing. Keep in mind that you don't always get the straight story about someone's level of trading success--now or when this book was written.

If one looks at the biggest winners of the past several decades, one finds that practically all show the same "chart behavior" that he writes about in his book. Learn from the past. A word of caution to value-oriented investors: This will probably be a waste of your time. But for the person who naturally gravitates to growth stocks, and who doesn't shy away from a stock due to its high valuation, this is second only to William J. O'Neil's "How to Make Money in Stocks" as the best book written on how to use charts to limit risk, yet expose yourself to each year's big winners.

This is probably my favorite book on maneuvering in the stock market. If you read William O'neill's "How to make Money in Stocks", which is also excellent, you will find he uses and expands upon many of Darvas' principles. O'neill also lists it as one of his top ten must reads on the stock market. Darvas' rules for cutting losses have helped me to limit my losses from 2 to 5 percent on average. I have avoided some serious losses from time to time(some up to 75 percent) by using Darvas' principles and cutting my losses quickly and have avoided avery market downturn in the last two years. While everyone was in distress about the '98 bear market, I was comfortably on the sidelines with my funds in cash thanks to this wonderful book. If more stars were available to rate this book, I surely would have given them. By the way, they're out of print, but if you can get Darvas' other books, "Wall Street-The Other Las Vegas" and "You Can Still Make it the Market", these are other followups that are just as good as "How I Made $2,000,000" and will really drive the points of his methods home.

I am not a big fan for equating investing with gambling, but Mr. Darvas has successfully done it again. Somehow he is able to make the negative connotation of gambling and turn it into a lesson for the novice and experienced trading.

This is essential, because if you don't know what you are doing wrong, how can you learn to do it right?

So by making traders realize that their is a risk of loss it puts them on the alert.

I read it in one sitting. This title fleshes out the contents of his first. I found its chief value to be in the identification of stock investing with gambling, and also the detailed mechanics used to define and time his entries and exits. Anyone at least mildly excited by his first offering ought to enjoy a little more of Darvas's company.

Famously reclusive cult writer Felix Sladkey is finalizing his latest novel, "A Whole New Religion". His typist Aaron receives various scraps of paper in the mail, which he then organizes into the proper book form, but slowly Aaron works himself into the Sladkey mythos and the novel itself. Sladkey's agent has his own secrets and is actually plotting Sladkey's downfall. When Sladkey shares his other writing (bad pornographic books written under an alias) with his favorite Russian bartender, the man is set on a path to his own destruction. Playfully skewering the literary industry, "Whole New Religion" is a zany tale of the maelstrom surrounding a famous author, and all those caught in it. Jakubovic's style is potently sparse and lends itself to vibrancy. This book would make a great movie, I think.