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To Still Learning, Elvis, Wellab1, Robert, Thank you all for your responses, there is a lot of collective wisdom on this board. In general, sometimes lost in the day to day is the greater truth, which is that day to day, short term opinions, don't or shouldn't matter to most. Long term wealth in the market for the majority is made by discovering great companies with superb management, and doing nothing for a very long time. Of the 10 wealthiest individuals in America, how many are short term traders? I keep an account at a full service broker [where I used to work] and because of the high commissions [which I am to cheap to pay], almost nothing happens. It is my forced discipline to keep winners a very long time. The discount account contains some of the same favorites, that will only get sold if the market goes manic. The other portion of the account is trading oriented, which is the result of last years experience of riding the wave up the first 4 mo. then witnessing a more than 50% decline by Oct. and adhering to a buy and hold all strategy to strictly. So far, this more aggressive trading strategy has been a good supplement to long term buy and hold. Regarding respect for companies, there are times when I exhibit disdain for a stock, but usually there is a distinction between the company and the stock price. I can have the greatest respect for a company, but if I think investors have gone brain dead in pricing it, there may be near contempt for the stock price. Elvis, NITE would probably sell off with vigor during a severe market downturn, as much from psychology as anything else. No one knows what they will earn next year. Only educated guesses based on conditions being similar to what they have been. Maybe conditions will be different. There could even be a bear market that lasts more than three months sometime! The projected environment is highly in their favor. All predictions based on probabilities. The most brilliant will be correct maybe 70% of the time when it comes to stock or market related predictions, which means that 30% of the time the predictions will be off base. The nature of this beast, but over time, diligence, experience, informed observation, and controlled action will win the longer term battle. Wishing you all continued investment success. Mike |
