From another board...
Where will HTRE be in 5 years?
Something to think about....
Anyone that gets so nervous that they cannot wait as long (as short) as another month or two should reconsider their fortitude for investing.
If you look at any of the huge money-making stock market stories over the last ten years and you wonder - boy it was so easy - just invest $100 in Dell and take
out $750,000 five years later - why couldn't I have gotten in on that?
The answer is you could have, but most people are too blind, too squeamish, too quick to panic, too quick to take short-term profits, too near-sighted to envision
the true magnitude of the "down the road" potential, too easily excited by "positive posts" while at the same time too easily vexed by the "negative ones" to
realize what they have in front of them until it's gone.
There are no "sure things" but some are closer than others. Many of the most successful investors wear "blinders", ear plugs, whatever it takes to remove
themselves from the daily grind of pessimism and the weekly/monthly grind of volatile stock swings as they go by their instincts.
Study any of the most successful stocks over the last 3 years and chart what was being said about them "then" and how investors were reacting to those words
"then" and compare that to where they are "now." and you will see some startling contrasts.
A perfect example is AOL. (Yes, we all realize that the Internet sector has been sagging as of late, but regardless of that, an investment in AOL 7-8 years ago
would still be worth major bucks today after 6 stock splits.) Look at the history of AOL's last 8 years and you will be amazed at the moments of pessimism and
stock downturns. Most of the daily followers of AOL that bought in 8 years ago were scared out 5 to 6 years ago. It sounds hard to believe but there were many
times that you could have read AOL's obituary.
I know, because before I started investing in the stock market, I said to myself - AOL - wow, it was (is) so easy to make money - everybody should be rich but
their not. - Why? - So I went back and read every article in "The Street.Com's" archives and looked up countless prior news and commentaries on AOL at
various news sites to understand and help me gain the "confidence to relax."
The answer is that throughout any company's path to success there are many moments of anxiety, moments of doubt, moments requiring great patience and
moment's that invoke. "Murphy's 3rd Corollary of Stock Investing" which states: "All stocks experience downturns just long enough to induce you to sell on the
morning of the day that it rebounds." And also… "Murphy's 2nd Postulate of psychological Market Parameters" (commonly referred to as M2PPMP) which
indicates that: "For every piece of good news that invokes you to buy there will be two pieces of follow-up commentary that will convince you to sell too soon."
So who made out the best in AOL (even with its currently depressed price?) Certainly not the M2PPMP crowd, but the investors that wore their blinders. I'm
content to put my blinders on.
But alas, in the end, everyone has to make their own decision based upon their own lives. But if a few weeks or a few downturns is all that it takes to scare you
out of what may potentially be "The Stock of the Year" then so be it, fall victim to M2PPMP and be content in the fact that you can still live vicariously through the
rest of us willing to go the distance and reap the rewards.
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