karasko hold on there, page-28

Hi Karasco.

I am a real beginner at the whole share game. I jumped in just after the November drop (not quite at the low, as I just discovered). After doing lots of reading and studying lots of company information (I have studied accounting and worked at a reasonably high level in banking), I put my dollars into ten different stocks.... Five of those stocks were what I figured to be "non speculative". The other five were property trusts, at levels which I thought could not go any lower.
How wrong was I..... Not only did my speculative stocks plummet (hey, who would have thought they could go any lower), but my "solid" stocks have also deteriorated dramatically.
I keep telling myself that over time, all these decisions will bear fruit, but it is a hard thing to watch the portfolio value dropping. In hindsight, I should have placed close stop losses as I made my purchases, but I entered into the ten stocks over a period of a few weeks, thinking each time that my research would be correct.
Unfortunately, a portfolio full of big name stocks is not helping me at all.
It is of real concern, but logically, I believe GMG is a good long term investment. I have averaged down, but my holding is pretty costly at 57 cents. Despite massive write downs of inventory (we all know this could go further), Goodman still looks good on paper as a long term investment. Hopefully my other speculators (VPG, BEC, SGP & ILF) will give me some relief. If not, provided they don't all go broke, in a couple of years I wills till be ahead of the game. Goodman is the last one I would worry about on this list......
I hope for your sake (and mine, as well as everyone else playing on this mad market) that this recovers somewhat in the short term, but keep yourself focussed on the long term prize. You may not be able to afford for this stock to drop lower, but can you afford to take a loss at its current level? I figure that now I am around 57% down on this stock, I can't afford to sell out. It's really all or nothing at that level. If this stock (and the others) get back to square again, I will set tight creeping stop losses on them. Right now, I am prepared to take my chances and rely on my gut feel, as well as my research. I may be a novice investor, but hopefully my background has at least given me the correct read on this company.