This week has been the pits for us long-term investors. I have a big chuck in a 401K and the options are not pretty for moving it around… in fact they have it set up so you can’t move it much… if you move into safe investments you can’t move it out for 4 weeks… now that would have worked fine for this summer, if you had known when it started to make the move but my luck would be to move it to safe and the market bumps 5%… which it nearly did than when able, move it back to a reasonable yet safe combination only to see it slump this week. Mostly I try not to re-evaluate my 401K much more than quarterly… but should have been in “safe-haven” since late April and wait for the Fall run…. I hope there will be a fall run?
All the StockTwits I read and all the other places I pull info are just about as across the board as you can get. Although I think the StockTwit community has a better handle on the shorter term working of the market than most advisors I have seen… it is hard to determine which and how much of what to follow… fact is you have to set your own limits, believe in your own decisions and research and “just do it”. Caveat here are two of many good things to remember:
1. Don’t ride a loser down… set stop-lose points when you get in and follow that with ritual observance…
2. Also do not be a pig and take profit when it is presented – decide that when you get in as well…
I am learning and both of these are hard to follow at times, because you just “know” it is going to come back… but do not get to believing that… it is the one most difficult thing to understand… do not love the stocks, or the company… study and believe when they are doing well but dump quick when they are not doing well…
If you want advise, do the opposite of what I do… or seek that advise from someone more qualified than me.