Page 878 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

138 HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS SUCCESS STORIES

Kevin Marder

Kevin started investing in 1985 with a very simple strategy: he bought blue
chip stocks from the Dow Jones Industrial Average that had earnings
growth of 20% per year.
In July 1987, Kevin noticed that the market was selling off, and so, being
a risk-averse investor, he sold many of his positions. But he had no idea what
was coming. Kevin turned on the TV on October 19th, the morning of the
“Black Monday” crash, and saw that the Dow had dropped 500 points, more
than 20%, and that the entire world market was collapsing. He immediately
sold his last short-term position, which was Royal Dutch, an oil and gas com-
pany. Although Kevin had been more fortunate than many investors, he felt
a bit stunned. It was a serious and devastating day for a multitude of traders,
and the crash hit many Wall Street firms hard, driving some out of business
altogether.
In the aftermath of the crash, Kevin realized he didn’t know how to time
the market. His strategy worked in the 1980s because stocks were in a bull
market. But now times were different. In 1990, he happened to come across
Investor’s Business Daily and saw an ad in the paper for How to Make
Money in Stocks. Kevin bought the book, and as he read through the chap-
ters, he began to see how the markets worked historically. For Kevin, this
was a watershed moment. Midway through the book, he felt as though
someone had turned a light bulb on in his mind. He put the book down, and
he began to pace the living room floor, thinking about what he had just read
and what a difference it would make in his trading.

The Learning Curve

Kevin attended several of IBD’s advanced investment seminars and found
that the CAN SLIM strategy fit his personality well, particularly the “N” in
CAN SLIM, which stands for something new. He had always been intrigued
by new things, whether they were related to cars, fashion, musical styles,
companies, or a host of other things. Operating in the aggressive growth sec-
tor would allow him to watch firsthand the progress of many companies that
were on the cutting edge. These were the names that would crank out the
heaviest advances in the stock market because they had customers beating a
path to their doorstep.
Kevin began subscribing to the Daily Graphs charting service that IBD
offered and would drive down to the printing plant every Saturday morning