1/3 of the way thereFun to watch this board. It provides a good perspective on why the markets act the way they do. There has been a lot of talk about trading in and out of BNK, in addition to holding long term. 6 Months ago (almost exactly), BNK was just crossing my average cost point (on the way up) after having already doubled from its low since December. So my average cost of just about $1 was double what someone who just bought in in December. Since then, I've seen many people talking about locking in 20-30% gains by trading in and out. I've neither purchased nor sold any shares since early 2009, and I'm up 200% in 6 months. What amazes me is that some posters are concerned that this stock is not rising fast enough.
I fully admit that in late 2008, I was worried, not about BNK, but about the economy. Intelligent reasoning was out the window, and Chicken Little was on the news every night talking about the world as we know it ending. Bears that had been singing the same tune since 1988 (and were wrong since 1988) suddenly were getting prime time action and fear was winning out against rational thought.
Remember when Warren Buffet said that it might be a good time to buy equities late last fall? Thats when I snapped out of it, stopped being fearful and started to realize that we had been presented with a huge oppotunity (the kind that had only been talked about since the late 30's). I was down about 70% on 25K shares of BNK late last year. By Early 2009 I had 75K shares and by Mar was above B/E. Many people I know were talking last fall about how they 'got out early' or had a conservative portfolio. Guess what, they are still out and still have a conservative portfolio - while my entire portfolio is up more than 70% from what it was at it's highest point in 2008 - not many conservative funds can say that.
My target last year for BNK was $9 by end of 2009. It is still $9, but not sure when. Since I'm not sure - I'll just hang on to these units and grin and bear the meager gains we've seen so far this year, instead of trying to make 20-30% by trading in and out.