I'm a bit of a noob investor that was part of the Reddit IPO offering. Put in a good chunk for the IPO, sold it at 50, got out, and I've been trading off of the filthy lucre ever since with the internal promise that I will never try to add external funds to it. It's not a princely sum, but enough for me to mess around on the margins and educate myself about trading in the interim.
I haven't been doing too shabby. I made good money in March/ early April because it was easy to. Then obviously the end of April downturn tested my lack of skills, and I actually still did OK. Yes, I lost money, but only about a 1.5% off my portfolio.
Right now I have a mix of tech, energy, metals, and a couple China stocks at the moment. I know about 1/4 of these companies, and the rest is just cursory research and some technical patterns.
Okay, my problem:
Using a screener, a few signals, subject matter knowledge, and intuition I can eke out a couple good buys. And I've made money on them.
I just don't know when to sell.
Do I sell just at the moment a stock seems to be soaring, or do I wait for it to peak, reverse, then sell? It worked for Reddit at least. I sold all of it while it was climbing because I sensed it was going to reverse hard and it did.
Definitely during this past week, I got a tough lesson in holding on to picks that I thought were bulletproof. Today I sold a stock that burned me badly, but I'm glad I did because it tanked way more even after.
So what is your investment philosophy when it comes to the letting go of stocks versus buying?
