Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: - with a K who wrote (18899)	3/17/2004 10:03:43 PM
From: Spekulatius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78520

re: Buy & Sell. My biggest mistake during the past year was to sell too early. I agree with Timbabear that to be really successful, one has to let winner run. All too often i had the right stocks at the right time, but missed out on the big moves, because i was happy to cash in. The other mistake i did was to concentrate too much on the entry points but overall I didn't really scrunitize my sell decisions too much. I don't know what the right answer is. I found that swingtrading with volatile stocks can be quite profitable even in a bear market, simply because the volatility can work in one's favor. I did very well with biotech's in Y2000 and Y2001, even though the stocks I owned went down, i was able to rack up very good gains. With buy and hold, i would have lost a lot of money. However I missed out on large gains once it was clear that the market was going up consistently. Part of the answer to the buy and sell question is to own stocks that one is comfortable with, buying small entry positions and average down when the stock heads down without obvious fundamental reasons. Likewise, i would tend to sell in chunk's when the stock goes up. The other part of the answer is to never let one position to become too big. I do have a limit for the maximum amount of capital i am willing to deploy in a stock idea before i buy the first position. This sum depends on how safe I perceive a stock, not on it's valuation. For a safe stock like Nestle, i would be comfortable to invest a much bigger sum than for example a small company like TRGL. This helps with respect to the "Sleep well" aspect of investing and prevent's me from trying to dig out of an investment idea going bad by averaging down and deploying more and more capital. Last not least i try not to restrict myself to buying stocks at low's once i am convinced that the valuation is OK. Many times i have tried to time my entries and never got in a stock that was going nothing but up. My solution is buy a starter position immediately and try to time subsequent entries (averaging down). That is what I intend to do with STHLY and BDK it is very very difficult for me since i just love to buy at 52weeks lows and such.