| Well there's no real topic on "buy and hold" for long term vs.
selling when a stock turns bleak or you believe it's reached
it's peak or just hasn't plain done anything.
As some of you know, I'm notorious for selling stocks at the
wrong time. However from reading some notes from others, I'm
not the only one who feels the market sees any stock I sell as
a signal to buy that stock.
To provide some data, I've compiled a list of every stock that I've
sold (and no longer own any shares of) to see how much profit I
either left on the table or how much profit (or in most cases
for me, how much further loss) I protected. This is all within
the last 2 3/4 years when I started investing directly in stocks
(after I had lost money investing in mutual funds the prior couple
of years).
In my case it turns out that if I had continued to hold these
stocks and sold at today's closing prices, that I would have
over an additional $113,000 profit! In reality however it's
more difficult to determine how much profit I lost out on because
I would of been unable to have all these stocks (at least with
the number of shares I owned) in my portfolio at the same time.
However had I not sold some of these stocks (like US Air [U]),
I would not have had the money to buy some of the stocks I ended
up selling at a loss. The "what if" game is hard to play :-)
Since I started holding stocks longer, my current portfolio
is doing MUCH better. I believe I've learned my lesson. I
just hope we don't have a major correction or crash that
proves this theory wrong.
As of close on Friday, March 6, 1997
Symb LastTrad SoldAt Diff #Shares
U 22.375 6.625 15.75 4000 $63,000.00
ATC 5.1875 1.25 3.9375 3000 $11,812.50 see note at end
MSFT 96.75 45.5# 51.25 200# $10,250.00
RHI 41.25 24.75 15.50 500 $ 7,750.00
INTC 143.5 71.5 72 100 $ 7,200.00
AMD 39.5 17.375 22.125 200 $ 4,425.00
BOST 31.25 17.5 13.75 300 $ 4,125.00
GTY 20.375 11.25 9.125 400 $ 3,650.00
MAN 39.625 26.5 13.125 250 $ 3,281.25
UNH 53.75 37.75 16 150 $ 2,400.00
USHC 52.75 39.25 13.50 150 $ 2,025.00
GTE 46.75 34 12.75 100 $ 1,275.00
HD 56.625 43.5 13.125 100 $ 1,312.50
TACO 5.25 6 .75 2000 $ 1,500.00
HUM 22.5 18.25 4.25 250 $ 1,062.50
WMT 27.375 22.375 5 200 $ 1,000.00
TOY 28.625 22.125 6.5 150 $ 975.00
AKSEF 3.9688 2.875 1.0938 300 $ 328.14
TSO 11.75 10.875 .875 300 $ 262.50
DEC1A 25.5 24 1.5 100 $ 150.00
HRVY 7.5 6.875 .625 200 $ 125.00
==================================================
$123,821.89
DR 2 6.125 -4.125 600 -$2,475.00
CATH 5.875 11 -5.125 400 -$2,050.00
SYBS 14.1875 22.875 -8.6875 200 -$1,737.50
DJT 9.75 14.375 -4.625 300 -$1,387.50 peaked @ 35.5 after I sold
KM 12.625 13.75 -1.125 800 -$ 900.00
CRUS 13.3125 20.125 -6.8125 125 -$ 851.56
WALL 16.5 18.5 -2 250 -$ 500.00
SBP 0.6875 1.125 -.4375 1000 -$ 437.50 stock no longer trades
NSH 12.375 13.75 -1.375 200 -$ 275.00
==================================================
-$10,614.06
Net: $113,207.83
# = split adjusted
Notes:
ATC (Atari Corp)
bought out by another co and peaked at 9 3/16 after i sold i
actually had 5,000 shares total but sold 2,000 shares several
months before I sold the remaining shares @ 3.5, which would
have been another $3,375.00
Key to symbols:
Symbol: U (USAIR GROUP) [NYSE]
Symbol: RHI (ROBERT HALF INTL INC) [NYSE]
Symbol: MAN (MANPOWER INC) [NYSE]
Symbol: CATH (CATHERINES STORES CP)
Symbol: SYBS (SYBASE INC)
Symbol: BOST (BOSTON CHICKEN INC)
Symbol: KM (K MART CP) [NYSE]
Symbol: GTE (GTE CP) [NYSE]
Symbol: UNH (UNITED HEALTHCARE CP) [NYSE]
Symbol: TSO (TESORO PETROLEUM) [NYSE]
Symbol: DJT (TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS) [NYSE]
Symbol: TOY (TOYS R US HLDG CO) [NYSE]
Symbol: DEC1A (DIGITAL EQUIPMENT 8 7/8 PR A) [NYSE]
Symbol: GTY (GETTY PETROLEUM CP) [NYSE]
Symbol: HD (HOME DEPOT INC) [NYSE]
Symbol: NSH (NASHUA CP) [NYSE]
Symbol: ATC (ATARI CP) [AMEX]
Symbol: MSFT (MICROSOFT CP)
Symbol: WALL (WALL DATA INC)
Symbol: HRVY (HARVEY ENTERTAINMENT CO)
Symbol: AKSEF (ARAKIS ENERGY)
Symbol: WMT (WAL MART STORES) [NYSE]
Symbol: CRUS (CIRRUS LOGIC INC)
Symbol: SBP (STANDARD BRANDS PAINT) [NYSE]
Symbol: TACO (TACO CABANA INC CL A)
Symbol: AMD (ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES) [NYSE]
Symbol: INTC (INTEL CP)
Symbol: HUM (HUMANA INC) [NYSE]
Symbol: DR (COASTAL PHYSICIAN GRP INC) [NYSE]
Symbol: USHC (US HEALTHCARE INC)
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