You and I share a lot of common history.... I first bought AAPL (back when roni and I were hanging out on a chat room for AAPL investors and options traders) -- I bought in July of '97 when I sold my VRC company stock and split it into 3 buys: AAPL, MSFT and ADBE.... I sold ADBE first, nice gain, but didn't seem like much future growth (I used ADBE, MSFT and AAPL to make a living back then)... then sold MSFT (only a triple) and hung onto AAPL until the year before my daughter was going off to college... when I sold, my cost basis was $1.53/share (split adjusted) and paid for all 4 years of my daughter's BA -- everything... but before AAPL began paying a divvy again (remembering that AAPL once paid a divvy very early in it's existence -- I think, could be wrong)... I don't own any now, but while I was on a trip, my wife bought a 1/2 position right before it began cratering (she bought over $200 and watched it go down a lot -- fortunately, I'd already beaten into her mind that it's only a loss if you sell and just hang on for a long time, and I'm sure she'll look back at another lesson learned.
The beauty of DGI is that you don't have to be a genius... you don't even have to "time" the market, though one is always looking for value/bargains... all you need to do to have your cake and eat it too is make sure to screen for true DGI stocks and start dollar cost averaging in, dripping if you're still young enough and don't need distributions... then as I got to retirement, I jettisoned the DGIs that didn't do as well as the others and redeployed into more value and income vehicles, but still maintaining about 85% DGI, more if you include my wife who's PFs are 100% DGI blue chips -- hence my going off the reservation with preferred, CEFs, etc. to goose income if/when needed. We're still dripping about 25% of our holdings and accumulating cash for if/when needed and also anticipating RMDs -- in 4 years for her, in 6 for me.
As always, it's more about "time in market" that makes the most difference between success and failure with almost any sort of strategy, but really gooses total returns over the decades when DGI-centric, say, at least 80% in DGI, IMO... but we all have different time horizons, plans, and ways to achieve both, so very seldom would criticize anyone who is active on this board -- I've often got some of my best ideas here, and transitioned completely from swing trading to DGI about the same time dabum/chowder did -- I was one of his "acolytes" from years ago. |
