I'm in a similar position to you. My last purchase was at $18.15...

I'm in a similar position to you. My last purchase was at $18.15 before it crept up to $18.50, so I'm not interested in the seventeens but if it drops to 16-odd dollars I'll be topping-up again with an aim to getting into nineteen-odd dollars of average purchase price. One thing I learned from the 2008 crisis is the value of averaging-down. I didn't panic-sell my ANZ shares, but did not re-invest dividends, and didn't have have the intestinal fortitude to buy more either. I keep thinking how I eventually broke-even, but could have made a nice profit if I'd only gotten that average purchase price down. Instead, each time the share price rose I was only clawing-back losses.

Looking at my watchlist and portfolio, I can see stocks which you almost couldn't give away a few months ago (even after the March sell-off) and are now doing really well. In a strange way, I'm reassured by the fact the oil price has such a large bearing on the fortunes of WPL. All the company needs to do is keep producing oil and gas at a low cost (which it is) and the share price will move with the WTI price. It's not like a retailer or bank or service company which needs to produce a customised product that can go out of favour. The energy recovery is inevitible; the timing is unknown. It is not a nice feeling, however, buying-in and knowing the share price will probably be lower tomorrow. It almost feels like burning money. Nobody ever buys a stock today thinking it will be worth less tomorrow, but it feels like it sometimes!

Lately, the market seems to be either flat, up 100+ points, or down 100+ points. I like how you wrote you've set entry points and are being disciplined -- making the market be your servant rather than your master. That way you can look forward to down days.