chart, page-29

Hey boccione

I wish there were more honest posts like yours. Too many people fall in love with their stocks and refuse to see reality.

I won't make any further comment about BLY in this thread, but I do hope you've got a stop price linked to "being wrong" on BLY, a price which if reached, no matter what, you'll just sell it because it didn't do what you thought it'd do when you bought it.

I've been in losing trades more times than I want to remember, and I've swallowed a couple of really big losses in my time too. I've come to agree with what all the best books teach:

1. Your first loss is your best.

2. You'll probably lose some rationality and perspective after buying a stock, so set a stop before you get in, and execute it no matter what.

In my early days I held stocks way too long. One in particular burned be pretty badly. I bought at 30c, it fell to 15c, then 10c, etc, until it's now at 0.002 cents! Stocks can always fall further no matter how good you think the story is or how much of a paper loss you'll crystalise into a real loss. If I ever get stuck in a situation like that again, the question I'll ask myself is:

If I had cash (current value) instead of these shares, would I buy the shares again?

Z