No worries about not having more info on Darvas. I just thought I'd ask as I have seen a few references to it, but never really a walkthrough of someone trying it over a period of a year tho.

I'm looking at a few different options a bit 'off the beaten path.'

My personal portfolio is currently similar and I'm invested solely in Canadian Bank stocks. They've taken a hit recently, but as they're all long term, we'll just weather the current storm and collect our dividend cheques ;) but, I would also like to give Darvas another shot - I just checked back this morning on the stocks that I had bought and sold about 2 years ago using Darvas method (diod, fzn, airm) and 2 of 3 are still winners today - couldn't remember what the other one I picked out and played.

Anyway - I'm envious of you and your surfing :) I've only been once just north of LA, but coming from land locked Manitoba, Canada it's always been a dream of mine. Unfortunately the whole coast of China is about as bad as Manitoba is for surf locations :P

Thanks for being an inspiration!

-Mitch

Bree,

I've spent five years trying out most investing styles, and Darvas' book was one of them.

I was pretty intrigued with Darvas' work, but I think it's been challenged by many changes-- decimalization, volume/liquidity, Reg FD, information moving at the speed of Internet, cheaper commissions, and institutional trading. While it's a very straightforward mechanical system, I'm not sure how much relevance it has among all those changes. It might still work. It might not. I didn't stick around to figure it out.

While I enjoyed learning with real money, it's also real work. My most important conclusion was that I didn't want to work that hard, especially when we already have enough money for our needs and no desire to become any richer. (That can suck the motivation right out of building a portfolio.) I've come back around to value investing because it seems to require the least overall effort, analysis, and monitoring. Berkshire Hathaway and an angel investor's club are as "out there" as I'm likely to get, and it's more for education than profit.

Sorry this wasn't more helpful. Methods that have fallen out of favor frequently outperform later, but I stopped the experiment to spend more time surfing...

-- Doug

Hey Nords,

I searched Darvas on the forums, and your name came up many times. I'm starting to think about Darvas again now that I have a little more money to play with.

Did you finally give his method a go? I played 3 winners about 2 years ago and one that didn't go so well, but then life got busy, cash was needed elsewhere and I stopped the experiment.

Interested to see if you went ahead with what you were reading.

Cheers

Mitch