📖 ZKIZ Archives

You Can Still Make It In The Market CUP

http://nodeadcow.blogspot.com/2011/07/you-can-still-make-it-in-market.html

又係時候推介第二季的投資好書。

今次推薦的是 Nicolas Darvas 的 "You Can Still Make It In The Market"　－－下圖，在五窮六絕的市況中，這個書名可謂應景：

這本1976年的作品 Nicholas Darvas 主要是透過敍述自己繼續用自創的 Box Theory 如何在50-60年代搵了$2M 、在1973-74的大熊市後，繼續贏大錢，以表示自己並非撞彩，自己所定的操作系統之重要性，以及歷久不衰。並藉此再解釋 Box Theory 的用法、持續有效性、以及如何切合市場的本質和實用性，並講及市場諸多普遍輸錢的錯誤以及股票市場的真相究竟是什麼。在 "You Can......" 一書中，作者把 Box Theory 稱為 DAR-CARD，不過都是一樣的，名稱並不重要。

此書其實很短，基本上英語水平不差的話，半天已可看完。以上兩書看似傻下傻下，但短小兼淺白，看完也有很大得著。比坊間大量超圾財經書藉，以及大而無當的 所謂經典有用得多。

以下是一些書中節錄，可供大家欣賞一下：

• Stocks don't like to be taken for granted. In some perverse way they have a habit of springing surprises and delivering a hearty slap in the face to anyone who is arrogant enough to think he has mastered them.
• A business acquainance of mine once bought a stock at 18, saw it rise to 44, then drop to 4 and then rise to 17 and drop again. I have told him many times to sell at 17 -- after all, what is a loss of a point? But no -- he refuses to sell it until it reaches his purchase price of 18. He is determined to teach that damn stock a lesson and get even with it. He has now been holding it for ten years waiting for that opportunity! The stock's price is now 9 and it shows no sign of ever reaching 18.
• Was the information true or false , reliable or planted, solidly based or completely unfounded? There was no way in which I or any other outsider like me could have found out with certainty. But I did not need to -- the behavior of the stock told me all I wanted to know.
• I had no idea of course that the company was having troubles at its plant. My actions had been governed purely by the behavior of the stock in the market. I had behaved like an insider without actually being one!
• A company may have the most wonderful fundamentals in the world, but if people do not buy the company's stock its share price will not go up one cent. Similarly, what is the point of buying a stock that is "cheap" if it then proceeds to get cheaper?
• When you buy a stock keep in forefront of your mind, not the great killing you are going to make, but the possibility that your stock could drop 50 percent in value very quickly. Never ever let this happen to you. Set a stop-loss, even if only a mental one.
• It is possible to misinterpret a stock's moves and end up picking a stock that does not behave as you thought it would. That can't be helped. There's no sure thing in the market -- that is why you must always have a stop loss.
• You must have some system, some rules of behavior when you buy stocks. Any system is better than none at all. And everyone must include a stop-loss.
• You must know your stock. By that I don't mean that you must know the company, its products, its history etc. I mean literally that you must know the personality of the stock you are buying, its idiosyncrasies, its moods, its mode of behavior. Some are slow, lethargic, and almost apathetic. Others are volatile, fidgety, and nervous and jump at the slightest happening.
• I did not give up my daily routine of scouring the stock-market tables for promising stocks. I habitually spend at least half an hour a day doing this. I regard it as absolutely essential. It is only by such regular scanning of stock tables that one can train one's eyes to observe significant changes.
• There's no sure thing in the market. Despite the most painstaking analysis, the most reliable information, and no matter how impeachable the source, stocks have the annoying habit of doing exactly the opposite of what you expect. The price of safety is eternal vigilance. You must keep a constant eye on your stocks.
• You've got to keep an eye on your stocks -- hold on to them while they are rising, sell them if they decline badly, and never be married to a stock.
• Not everyone is temperamentally suited to the stock market. Anyone who is unwilling or unable to devote some time to it is probably better off out of the game altogether.
• When you realize that share prices are determined not by company earnings, dividends, assets, etc., as so many people fondly believe, but by investors' future expectations, emotions, sentiments, and even wishful thinking . A company in the red and with no earnings can thus find its share price climbing purely and simply because an improvement in its earnings is anticipated in the future, even though these expectations are never realized.
• It is what the market thinks the share is worth and not its theoretical worth that determines its price. Whether the market is "right" or  "wrong" in its conclusion is irrelevant.