Monday, December 31, 2012

Why sell stocks???

A testament of how a poor seller I am, sometimes you cannot follow your heart when you sell.

Just a show of the stocks I sold in the portfolio. This year I sold 4 different stocks as in below.


Stocks I sold:

Genting - well sold it correctly I guess in the early part of the year. Now trading around RM9.20.
AEON - wrong move! Sold at RM9.02 and RM12.12. Now trading above RM14.00
Oldtown - Sold at RM2.20. Now trading above that price.
ICap - well sold at about the same price it is currently trading at, although I would have sold this stock anyway.

Lesson - do not be over eager to sell once you have found a good, well managed company. Stay with them for a longer period. Much more worth it this way.

15 comments:

Unknown said...

what was the reason u sell AEON and oldtown (what trigger u to sell it)?

felicity said...

Followed my heart as I thought have made too much too fast. Typical...

CrabGrill said...

Hi Felice,

Happy New Year.
To me, the most difficult thing is not about identifying stock value for money but the patience to hold it without attractive dividend yield (>6%), until the share price go slightly above its fair value. This period could be short if you're lucky, and long until you sell just before the great rewards. I have experienced the former in MFLOUR investment and the later in GAB where I spent almost 30% of my money in it at average price of RM 5.50 and then sold it at RM 7.10 only to learn that it climbed to RM 10.00 in less than one year and now is already >RM 16.00. What would you feel when you hold it longer than many people are in love, then come to know that you've sold it cheap and lost it forever? I recall what John Rooney said in Road to Perdition, "Then I will mourn the son I lost".

CrabGrill said...

A good share is like a son. He feeds you when you're old, and that is more assured than a below average son. He grows as well, and the bigger he becomes, the more good he does to you. And he normally lasts longer. As long as he is in good health and is under your name, he will never run away to someone else, unless you sell him. Sometime, this kind of weird thinking comes into my mind while I am thinking of investment. What has gone wrong?

felicity said...

What Buffett said, it does not take a smart guy to be a great investor.

lg said...

Hi Felicity and CrabG,
Why never thought of buying again at higher and sell higher eventhough knowing it's still a good stock? It's hard to keep believing that the good run will keep going...i guess. I'm new to investing and hope would be able to build a good return portfolio like yours one day.
Btw, what do you think of TopGlove? It's a good managed company but dividend yield not that great.
Thanks and happy new year!

felicity said...

Top Glove - great company great industry. Just look at IRCB. Does not mean that you are doing rubber gloves, there is a sure success. There are winners and losers. Top Glove is a winner.

Keat said...

I feel that you did the right thing in selling though. If the price is not justified by the prospects, then you should be feeling cautious and think about selling.

Imagine if AEON goes to RM20 in the next 2 months, does that mean you made a bad choice in selling? I'd think not. Speculation is independent of investing, and a share price is not a living thing, and should not be approached as such. Buy it as soon as it's worth the price, sell it as soon as it's not. Anything more would be speculation, no?

I apologise if I might've misspoken and no malice is intended to anyone. I am still a newborn to this field and my opinion is formed on the basis on what meagre amount that I have collected, so if there's anything that I have missed and not considered, I would be thankful if you could help me in my journey to understand this all the better.

Happy New Year!

felicity said...

Happy New year Keat, you are correct as in any investments, the best you can do is to pick the right stocks. Timing is always the difficult one. never feel sorry after sale. :)

phantom78 said...

It's close to impossible to buy at the bottom or sell at the top. Perhaps you could try practicing to never buy/sell at one price but stagger your trades. That is what I do. Happy New Year Felicity. P78

felicity said...

Thanks. But I guess my thoughts was that this was too small for trades to be staggered. :)

Anonymous said...

On 27th Dec 2012 your article 'Tradeswinds PLantation may have been cornered' has encouraged many shareholders to sell. Do you still recommend sell?

Koon Yew Yin

felicity said...

Hi Mr Koon

I don't think I asked anyone to sell Tradewinds Plantations - just to be careful looking at the shareholding structure. My view is still the same but not on whether one should buy or sell.

Unknown said...

Buying a stock is much easier but ,when to sell the stock is very complex than to buy stocks .there are many prevalent and stem from wide range of sources including investments,analysts,stock brokers and investment managers.when selling stocks implies the double of price in worthy goal.

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