Terry >As soon as profits are there TAKE THEM
The trouble is, what does one do with the money? What I have found, when trying that approach, is that one sells all one's good stocks prematurely and ends up with a portfolio of crap.
Many years ago, when I first started this game, a very good broker who I happened to be dealing with at the time told me there was only one way to make money on the stock exchange and that was to run one's profits and cut one's losses. I must say, over the years that advice has invariably turned out correct and the times when it hasn't have been when I have been hanging on to losers, never when I have been holding winners.
There is also another thing which Richard Russell keeps talking about and which many market operators don't know and that is the primary trend usually lasts many years. As far as I am concerned, the whole trick is is to find stocks or sectors where the primary trend is going upwards, then get in --- and go with the flow --- wherever it takes one. Of course, this sounds simpler than it is --- finding an uptrend when there isn't much of one is often more of act of faith than anything else, holding one's stocks when they are going over "waterfalls" definitely requires even more of this faith but the hardest thing of all is to sell the stock after one has been "married" to it, often for many years, and, indeed, when it has been a good "wife" and given one an excellent return.
So, for what it's worth, I believe gold stocks are in a primary up-trend and I will therefore hold on to them until I am completely satisfied that the bull market in gold, and presumably the bear market in general stocks, is over. That, as it seems we both envisage, could still be a few years away. |
