bunch of whingers (not everyone)!, page-7

Be cautious of all the optimistic viewpoints on share price going up, everyone in likes to think that, and I have noticed that people who have lost a significant fraction of their investment tend to be overly positive because we want the price to go back up. We also tend to be more biased to this optimistic viewpoint because we want our money to go up, or we wouldn't have bought shares at all. If you are aware of any possible emotional bias you can evaluate people opinions here a bit more evenly, and not just favour those that provide the best outcome for you.

Look at the whole situation and decide where to take profits, and what the risks are. For goodness sake do not just sit and loose too much capital value. Look at the fundamental value, and how the market responds. Do not let yourself get to a position where you have lost 25% or more of your investment capital and stay in just because you can not bear to see it realised, forced to believe the price will go up again. If your investment halves in value you need it to double in price just to make even and shares doubling in price do not come every week. You can always buy in again later, the only way that the price is going to jump 25% over night is if we get another takeover offer, or make a sudden new discovery.

I am not saying to sell now, the price has stabilised, I am looking for at least another 10% profit now, and a chance at a higher takeover or the deal falling through. Be prepared to sell though if it looks like a top forming under 5c, and volume jumps on a downward move, indicating sophisticated investors getting out. If the price clearly trends down then get out and buy in again and look to enter 20% lower, meanwhile invest in another goldstock going up. Wait and see how the market reacts to this capital raising.

You can see all this sort of advice repeated on this forum over the last 12 months. Look at who is saying what and when, and which advice given would have made you better off if you had followed it. All of us make good and bad calls, but in the long run if you want to make your investments work, you need to look carefully at the analysis given by both sides and judge it, partially based on who has made solid returns.

People who have lost significant money on a stock tend to be overly optimistic and genuinely continue to believe the price will go up when they have lost half their original investment. I can admit to being the same on one company where I have lost $40,000 (oil not gold - actually CVN), but bought some more recently because I genuinely believed the current capital raising will see them through and their operations have clearly changed the last 2 months. However this was a tough decision because I recognised I was clearly biased after loosing so much money. I know I will not loose money like that again though, certainly not in FML, (actually I hope to make back part of that loss in FML if it goes to 4.5c)