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Strategies & Market Trends : A Simple List of General Do's & Dont's of Trading: -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David A. Lethe who wrote (10)	5/13/1996 8:02:00 PM
From: Cadaver	Respond to of 769

Regarding taking a profit: How do you decide whether it's a correction or a slide? I have sold on corrections and lost money. Cadaver

To: David A. Lethe who wrote (10)	5/17/1996 11:50:00 PM
From: Lee A. Rosin	Respond to of 769

I think it's really important to look at the chart of the stock in question. I bought IO recently, for example, at 35-5/8 and it went up to about 36-1/4 a couple of times and then started sliding back down and stopped out at 34-1/8. I wasn't using tech analysis at that time (boy, NOW I sure am!) and I would NOT have sold if I'd seen the chart. Well, don't you know that sucker barely touched 34 the next day then promptly shot up to 38!! Even if you don't know anything about tech analysis, just looking at the hills and valleys tells a story! I may be at the "See Spot Run" level of chart reading, but at least I'm not making the same stupid mistakes (and taking the needless losses) I did a month or so ago. Happy Trading! Lee Rosin

To: David A. Lethe who wrote (10)	2/18/1998 1:47:00 PM
From: Qualopec	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769

I agree that you should sell when your gut tells you you have a loser. I bought VANS at 16.25, expecting it to hit 25 in 1998. Immediately thereafter, it fell to 14 on mediocre earnings. I got out and put my money in CMGI, which is up 45% since then, making back my money and more. VANS, of course, fell to 8 on across-the-board downgrades when its Japanese distributor went bankrupt. I still like VANS long-term, and now I can get in for half of what I first paid. Of course, I could have had a buy-and-hold strategy, and eventually, perhaps a year from now, I might have recovered my losses. But sometimes, when your nose is telling you it smells bad news, it pays to listen. I saw limp earnings from VANS at a time when it should have been booming -- something was wrong. On the other hand, when I feel a downturn is driven by hype, as opposed to fundamentals, I'll hold. Stocks I'm holding despite their losing value since I bought them: LTBG (I tripled down on the dip, which was due to a billing error despite otherwise increasing revenue); ACRT (manipulated by shorts despite great earnings); and TRMB (lowered earnings when it had to fill a low-margin military contract ahead of high-margin private contracts). I guess my rule is: Only sell when the reason you originally decided to invest in the company no longer seems valid. Justin