Deciding When to Sell Your Stocks:
The Most Difficult Decision!

"You gotta know when to hold'em and know when to fold' em!"

Selling a stock is one of the most difficult decision an investor faces, while purchasing it is sometimes much easier!

Like most investment decisions, selling is part science, part art. Unfortunately, for many investors, however, it amounts to sheer panic. They sell when their stock goes down. They sell when the entire market goes down.

In short, they sell for emotional reasons!

Most investors are motivated by things such as fear of loss and fear of regret rather than by rational decisions designed to grow their money. These emotional, and irrational, decisions are just what successful investors must avoid.

Besides, if you don't buy a stock prior to a major climb in prices, all you've lost is a hypothetical opportunity to make a good profit.

But if you hold a stock and make the wrong decision concerning when to sell, you can lose a substantial amount of your profits and sometimes even a part of your capital.

Think about selling before you buy.

Before you buy a stock, you should consider both your motive and your time frame. Monitor your investment and make your decision to sell based on your original goal.

If you reach your goal before your time frame, you can sell and feel good knowing you achieved your objective.

But if your time schedule pass and you're not even close to your goal, you may have to consider selling or readjust your schedule.

Figure out how much you can afford to lose.

Sometimes, the value of many stocks may go immediately down. Some will recover and go up, but others will not.

To avoid the second situation, you should determine well ahead of time how far you're willing to go before you're ready to sell and get out!

Depending on your personal situation, you may be able to absorb a certain percentage of loss, but the main thing is to establish a "stop loss" point for yourself and then stick to it.

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