David:
While I trade (= short term hold for splits, IPO's, nets, etc.) about 10% of my overall holdings, I wouldn't call myself a day trader. Most of my holdings are long term (at least several years) positions, for which I try to do as good a FA job as I can before taking a position.
Then I ignore all the day to day fluctuations, keep track of what's going on with the industry/sector/company to be as sure as I can that the reasons I got into the stock are unchanged. When I accumulated the 42K share position in Corel that I ultimately held in 1997 over the course of about 9 months, I had an average cost basis of just under $6 US by the time the Q3 earnings warning struck. Prior to the warning, the earnings model I had (rather painstakingly) built had Corel at $20 plus 2 years out, but unfortunately some of the underlying assumptions (based on Dr. C's pronouncements) turned out to be without any foundation. Hence I exited the entire position pronto at about $5.50, even shorted some because I was sure there was more bad news to come.
So, my exact re-entry point into CORL (if I get that far) isn't as important as the fundamentals for a long term gain being in place. So right now, I intend to follow events for a while, and maybe even wait until the Q3 earnings in September before starting in again.
David T. |
