| | | Madharry, it's not only that the position - the stock - isn't doing what I expected it to do, it's more that the business isn't doing what I expected it to do. STRS has become burdened with hotel and restaurant operations. I bought it because I was looking for a prime Austin property developer (homes/apts/condos). I bought IPI because of its ownership of a lot of water rights which were located where they could sell water to fracking companies. Those fracking companies have been diminishing their production, not increasing as I had expected.
I buy a lot of stocks for various "baskets" that I hold. Ben Graham said of his net-net basket, if a stock doesn't work out (i.e. 50% gain) in two years, sell it. Not sure about his last (1976) interviews where he said buy a package of stocks that are based on some metrics he mentioned (low p/e, etc) --- and sell if the stocks don't work out over some time period -- if that was again two years.
I try to give a company a reasonable time period to produce results. Two years seems reasonable to me in general. If the "ruling reason" I've bought shares no longer holds, then I want to sell when I realize that. (Not so easy sometimes)
Regarding AMGN experience, there might be a couple of lessons. If the company were growing or getting approval for drugs, and that was expected, then the fact that the stock wasn't going anywhere shouldn't have been a cause for sale. Easy to say, but so many other stocks and things compete for a person's money, so I see where it could be tough to hold on. Also I occasionally hear the argument for selling that "you can always buy back in". In my experience this is not so easy as it would seem. There's regret you missed an opportunity and the question whether it's now so late that it's too late. Plus again other stocks and things compete for one's money, life goes on, and one just forgets to relook, reevaluate the missed opportunity. |
|
