To: space cadet who wrote (3555 ) 8/28/1998 4:07:00 PM From: The Philosopher Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Well, yeah. And I may have given the wrong impression when I said I rode it down from 54. I didn't BUY it at that price; I got it earlier in a buyout. I was selling gradually (but obviously not enough!) on the way up, every 5 points gain or so I would sell a bit, and I even sold some at 53. When it started drifting down I figured to wait until it recovered. <g> Then it got nailed in one day on an earnings warning when I wasn't watching enough, and the buzz was that this was the market overreacting and it would pop back up again. As we all know now ... well, hindsight is a great teacher. <g> I rode it back down without selling any on the way down. Tell me now how stupid I was. But tell lots of others on this thread the same thing. When it was at 25, how could it go lower? When it dropped to 20, surely that had to be the bottom and nobody wants to be dumb enough to sell at the bottom and watch somebody else make all the profit as it recovers ... I have to tell you, this experience has taught me a lot about market psychology and about myself I never knew before. I guarantee you one thing: I understand first hand the advice I used to think of as silly, never trust an investment manager who hasn't experienced at least one major bear market. So I looked at my mutual funds and pulled stocks out of two of them when I realized they were run by relative kids who had never seen a nasty market. It does things to you!
