Paul: On a similar note [as categorizing longer term holds], I started a separate yahoo portfolio for 'sells' to see if I was a bit to quick on the trigger. In many cases I am despite having often sold with solid profit. Some of my extreme 'sold too soons' include ANF +94% [American Eagle outperforming didn't hurt them much, I guess], SOL +98% [After languishing for a year, the pop up looked good, MSFT +53%, LTBG +54% [I knew this was worth more, but thought it would trade down and offer lower entry], STEI +66% [And that AFTER I sold at simple ROI of 114% and annualized ROI 1470% both after tax and commissions....during the entire time Merrill had [& has] a neutral on it].
OTOH I dodged some uglies USG -75%, NT -47%, GLW -31%
In the overall my recent sells are up 10% since I sold them, while my holds are up 14% YTD [Not exactly comparable time periods].
Conclusion: I'm still ready to sell stuff that gets ahead of itself [STEI?] or situations where industry fundamentals have gone to hell [NT, GLW], but need to lean against tendency a bit and give them some more wiggle room. And I need to get better at jumping out in order to jump back in lower or quit trying to do it. |
