Thank you Rande for inviting the Workers and Lurkers to respond. Here is my story.
Mistake No. 1
I missed the initial move out of the positions by roughly one week. However, I never expect to get out at the top. When I did get out, I had doubled and gone up another 50% since November.
Mistake No. 2
I started re-entering the market too soon. It had just started its series of declines. One of my last remaining poor habits is to let $'s be idle. Please try to remember this during your frequent general discussions you will lead this year. For the unseasoned investor, especially less than 5 years, its sounds silly but one of the hardest things to do is hold cash.
Mistake No. 3
Did not re-exit when the market started the serious sell off. I could have probably exited with an additional 10% loss. I am down eod today about 2/5's from my intraday all time high. This means I will wait and see.
Positives No's 1, 2 and 3
I Did Not Panic Sell
I had looked very hard at the remaining positions. I either really liked the position for l-t ( thru end of year ) or was satisfied with my entry relative to the 52 week range.
My positions include some rats, some issues like LPTHA, RDOC, CICI, BDE, ONSS, USTI. I also have some bio and speculative positions like NEON, ARIA, POWI and HYPR. I do not think that these came from your thread but I may be wrong. I certainly do not make recommendations myself. If you are familiar with those 4 in particular I would be interested in your opinion. I am not requesting buy, sell or hold as we make our own decisions here.
I would like to take a moment to thank the regular contributors to the thread: William Jepsen, Kevin Shea, Kaliico, rocknj, American Spirit, Julie, Baton, Sting-Ray57, Gina, DlphcOracl, xcr600, bobp, fishweed, BANCHEE, RetireSoon, Wendisman, Tradelite, Friendly_Trader, Joe Smith, christopher, prophet_often, ~protege, ...., well, it's a trap to start because you can't name them all. I read every post and anyone who has posted more than twice I go to their profile and try to learn a little bit about each individual.
My Game Plan
See which positions come back and which don't. If a position has not come back prior to the fall I will sell it. I would probably sell out or reduce those that do come back. I am not as sure going forward what to do other than be ready this fall. I expect alot more volatility, more rate hikes and perhaps revisiting intraday lows set Tuesday or perhaps even lower on brief spikes down.
Thank you again Rande for the invitation for the Workers and Lurkers. I hope there will be a place for us in the future as well.
Sincerely,
John Hagelman |
