RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Who is Other? I'm gonna get my ACB as low as possible if there is another sell off and then leave it in the hands of the gods
There's something to be said for that approach, especially if you're in a fundamentally good company and a bull market for that company. I've owned a lot of really good companies and made good money on them, but would have made a lot more if I'd held tight longer. Of course, I still think the important thing is to hold tight from a winning position, as I've owned others that I thought were good companies that subsequently failed to deliver, and their stock price reflected that delivery failure.
That's the challenge with the market - it's broadly predictable, but full of surprises that make no sense. This is why I think all the great investors and speculators have the standard advice - ride your winners and cut your losses short. It's just a realization that the market in general, and individual equities in particular are prone to 'black swan events' - price movements way beyond the expected that are COMPLETELY unpredictable. So following the 'cut your losses and ride your winners' dictate is simply acknowledging that, and saying 'I'll maximize exposure to upside surprises by holding my winners (even at the expense of getting out even instead of taking a 10% profit) but will NEVER get caught by a downside black swan, because I'll take the loss, even if the stock price bounces right back after I sell.
To me, VTR's move down was a 'black swan'. It makes no sense relative to the performance of peers in the market, company fundamentals, market fundamentals, and yet here we are. So the only way I could have protected myself would have been to have sold when it dropped 10% below my cost. I still expect it to rebound, but now I'm in the uncomfortable position of hoping the market will return to something approaching sanity, rather than having the golden opportunity to buy it at a crazy discount and have huge upside exposure with minimal downside.
Anyway, good luck with it.