How often to sell stocks?

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take the profit.

and I can give you many examples. I bought Chesapeake at 20 when natural gas was booming, went to 30 and instead of selling, I,m convinced i.m going to retire on this one buy. It's approx 3 right now. 1000 shares.

was day trading, buying and selling 1000 shares of whatever on .50 up. $500/day, no brainer right. got hooked into PFE and did a few good trades. things went south and I had a 1000 @ 38.96. 20 years later, I'm finally up on it, and I did get the dividend, but there are probably 100+ stocks that are 10x in that period.

don't buy car stocks, ever.

I bought BAC for the first time @ 5 when the bottom fell out in everything. that's the only advice I can give. pick out a few very good companies and wait for the fall. it always happens.

sadly, there is no company that some Ivy Leagu, top of the class CEO can't destroy. I took a loss this year on GE (and glad I got out when I did) and I'm sitting on ATT and Ford and have little hope for either.
 
Originally Posted by PandaBear
Depends. I only invest in things I know about, and the rest go into Vanguard or pay down my mortgage.

I also don't invest based on the finance side of things much (others will always be better than me in that dept), only with industrial knowledge, and buy when it looks promising, sell when everyone and their moms are talking about it.

Lots of great , low cost Vanguard ETFs.
 
I recently began investing on Robinhood, started out cherry picking stocks. At first, I assumed I could do as the OP suggests-- simply buy low price stocks with great analyst buy ratings, sell when they go up a decent amount. I quickly found out that's just gambling. After investing $2,000 spread into diverse sectors of the economy (oil/gas, renewables, manufacturing, pharma, etc.) mostly on stocks priced between $10-20, I made $70 in the first couple days. I thought to myself "too easy, why the [censored] doesn't everyone do this?" It went up and down a few days, but I was still making money. Then one Friday most of my stocks dropped about 2-8% for no rhyme or reason, putting me in the hole a fair amount. From there the stocks went up and down in very unpredictable ways, way too much of a roller coaster ride for me. It really is a crapshoot, I sold all my individual stocks and invested into ETFs and a couple select companies I'll hold for the long haul and plan on leaving it there.
 
My rule of thumb if your shares are cost free and the business is in a secular growth industry you hold forever if possible especially if it pays a dividend. Since those instances are uncommon especially for a value investor you are trading the business cycle hopefully buying near lows and selling near highs.

I think dollar value averaging index funds are the best way to go for most people who don't have the copious amount of time to dedicate to individual stocks.
 
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Originally Posted by PandaBear
Depends. I only invest in things I know about, and the rest go into Vanguard or pay down my mortgage.

I also don't invest based on the finance side of things much (others will always be better than me in that dept), only with industrial knowledge, and buy when it looks promising, sell when everyone and their moms are talking about it.

Lots of great , low cost Vanguard ETFs.


Newbie question:
Which Vanguard ETFs? I am guessing I can buy these through my ameritrade account?
 
There's a loaded question where you'll get as many opinions as answers...typically, it would probably depend on if your ETF portfolio was your core holding or something that's more of a supplement to it.

VOO is probably the most common as an S&P 500 fund and depending on if you balance your holdings toward one of the different indexes, it might push you toward one ETF or another. I have VOO, VTV, VUG, VEA, BNDX and few others but all those are fairly common and widely held in their space. VTI replaces VOO as a Total Stock Market index product if you go that way. There are many great non-Vanguard ETFs but it may not be advantageous to buy them elsewhere depending on the brokerage and if you're going to trade them versus buy & hold.....or if you buy them based on a .08 vs. 09 expense ratio instead of the underlying strategy or holdings.
 
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srockrex,

I mentioned Vanguard because their ETFs and Mutual Funds are commission free trading (Fidelity and others also have free trades).

Currently have:
Core holdings: VTI, VOO
Growth: MGK, VUG, VOT, VBK
Technology: VGT
Dividend: VYM

Yes, you can have Vanguard ETFs in TDameritrade account. Like what Vuflanovsky mentioned, there's lots of excellent ETFs besides Vanguard.
 
Too late to edit.


My choice to invest in would definitely be the:
Fidelity Zero Total Market Index Fund - FZROX

0.00% Expense Ratio

I just checked and Vanguard will not allow this fund to be bought in a Vanguard account. Same goes for TDameritrade. ...ž
 
Originally Posted by riklyn
take the profit.

I bought BAC for the first time @ 5 when the bottom fell out in everything. that's the only advice I can give. pick out a few very good companies and wait for the fall. it always happens.

.


Most investment firms will tell you that once you go all cash you might miss a big jump in value appreciation.
In English that means, pls don't yo money out, I still have to pay for my private jet.

As Riklyn pointed out, he was able to get into BAC for $5, you only do this if you have the $$$ in cash and not tied in a instrument that has lost 50% in value.

When I worked as a W2, I stopped automatic allocation for each paycheck contributions, my bi-monthly contributions went to money marketish funds and then few times a year I would reallocate myself to company stocks and others.
 
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Vuflanovsky , Mr Nice,
Danke,
I was confused what low cost was, lol, low operating expense ETFs,
Wow, 0% cost ETF, nice,

Guys please pay attention to this, most places will TAKE 2% of the pie to fund their private jets, it does not matter you make money or not.

I will post a separate thread on ETFs, thanks again!
 
Haven't owned stocks for some time... I'm pouring most of my investments into my business and saving a ton in tax efficient vehicles that multiply my efforts. I'm also in real estate...
 
I know a guy who called the low in 2009. To the exact number. He told everyone who would listen to go all-in like he did.

To most people, such a feat is indistinguishable from magic.

Sometimes when someone says something is impossible, it just means they don't know how to do it.
 
Some market events are more "telegraphed' than others and you can probably say that people predicting the bottom in early 2009 might've been supported by the climate as much as prognostication. That's the argument against charted Golden Crosses and Death Crosses in that you can make the case that Golden Crosses can be as correlated with market sentiment as much as being a predictor of what's going to happen in the market....and Death Crosses sometimes happen after the main drop.

Jack Bogle was talking about a newer "new normal" before he died that would make buying on the dip less productive and more dangerous than the last decade ( which would make sense to me ), but how close that comes to reality probably doesn't really change a plan if equities are still the best option ...it just changes the outcome.
 
Originally Posted by DejaVue

I know a guy who called the low in 2009. To the exact number. He told everyone who would listen to go all-in like he did.

To most people, such a feat is indistinguishable from magic.

Sometimes when someone says something is impossible, it just means they don't know how to do it.



There was a guy on CNBC that called the 2009 low, to the day. I didn't believe him, stupid me...
 
Originally Posted by stockrex
Newbie question:
Which Vanguard ETFs? I am guessing I can buy these through my ameritrade account?


I'm not very good with things I don't know well, but I believe in diversification (i.e. S&P 500, Russell 3000, or things like that), low cost (mainly because I don't want the managers' bias, then the commission), and dollar cost averaging so I do not need to panic or time the market.

Basically, I'm about 50% in a large US low fee ETF like S&P 500, 25% international fund, and 25% in cash equivalent. This way no matter how the market move between US and international, stock vs cash, I'll be able to dollar cost average in this 2 dimension. Sure I'll lose some long term gain in stock but I gain some mental sanity, making me feel like I'm winning no matter how things go (buy low sell high). My mental sanity is saved, and I can focus on other things in life (like work and family). It is worth it in this regard.

Originally Posted by DejaVue

I know a guy who called the low in 2009. To the exact number. He told everyone who would listen to go all-in like he did.

To most people, such a feat is indistinguishable from magic.

Sometimes when someone says something is impossible, it just means they don't know how to do it.



It is also not because they don't want to, but they don't have the fund to.

When everything is cheap, it means a lot of people have no money to invest, are forced to sell to cover the margin call, lost their job and have to sell at a lost to live, or cannot borrow money to buy a home, etc.

This is how the riches get richer, and why they always diversify.
 
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