Know when to walk away...

onrail

Folks,

Another question akin to 'how long is a piece of string' but...

I've a very small diversified portfolio, ~10k sitting on close to 20% return in less than a year. Individual stocks are all up, somewhere between 4% and 70%. At the minute I'm thinking of cashing out if I hit 20% overall.

Do investors on here have any strict rules (%gain or loss) on selling up? Has it worked for or against? I appreciate that there are a million variables, but it'd be interesting to see.

ixus

If 20% is your goal, why not cashout 40-70% and let the rest ride?

cork93

What are the individual stocks?

onrail

Glencore, FB, GOOG, ULVR, RDSB, BKIR.

A gold tracker or gold miner is probably next on the shopping list

Sabre Man

You've done well so far. What is your goal with your investment?

Are you afraid of a correction or crash? Is that why you want to cash in, or do you want to use your money for something else?

There will be corrections and crashes at some time in the future but guessing the timing is impossible. If you bail out, the shares could keep rising and the prices may be above what you sold them for after any correction, so you may not be able to buy them for a lower price in the future if that is what you are hoping for.

onrail

Sabre Man wrote: »

You've done well so far. What is your goal with your investment?

Are you afraid of a correction or crash? Is that why you want to cash in, or do you want to use your money for something else?

There will be corrections and crashes at some time in the future but guessing the timing is impossible. If you bail out, the shares could keep rising and the prices may be above what you sold them for after any correction, so you may not be able to buy them for a lower price in the future if that is what you are hoping for.

Goal is simply to beat the market! Going away travelling for a year shortly, and would like to have this available when I return (as opposed to needing it right now).

I've relatively little economic/financial training (so what do I know!) but if I was to make a call, I'd predict a correction within 6 months with a crash in 36-48 months at most.

Like the idea of cashing out 50-60% and seeing what happens with the rest

The Cuban

Its all relative to they type of stock you are invested in and what return you want. If you are invested in a small pharma company who is a few weeks away from phase 3 results on some new drug are you gonna be happy with a 20% rise when the result which could yield 0% or 1000% return.
If you do not know what your target is or understand the returns you could get but have got lucky then cash out, access your positions before investing any further.

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