$13+ ?, page-9

"i wasn't gonna take 3500 dollar loss" – I like you. I read a lot of your posts and I respect the thought and effort you put into your investments and your opinions. I'll share a lesson that I learned only gradually and at enormous expense...

The phrase "you've only lost if you sell" is only true for taxation purposes. Seductive as it is, this view is absolutely, completely, dead wrong.

If you invested $5,000 in something, and it is now only worth $3,000 on the market then you have lost $2,000. It doesn't matter whether your remaining $3,000 is in the bank, in your wallet, or in shares, you only have $3,000. The question "what was my investment originally worth" is completely and absolutely irrelevant. The only relevant question is: is this investment the best thing I can do with my $3000? If it's not, take your $3,000 and put it in the best thing.

Sometimes that's hard to do because who wants to throw away $2,000? Especially when you have to work so hard and turn over so many times more than that amount just to free it up for savings and investments. But understanding and accepting that it's already gone helps to get the emotion out of the equation and make a rational decision to go forward with. Sometimes it also helps to take a stick and beat the crap out of a cardboard box with $2,000 written on the side.