Spotlight: When to Sell Your Stocks

If you are a long-term investor, the very thought of selling a stock comes with a host of emotions and dilemmas. In this post, we bring in experienced investors to share their thoughts on how they have managed to overcome the issues surrounding selling their own stocks.

Barbara Streisand, an American singer and actress found a new occupation for herself in 1999, during the heydays of the dot com bubble. She became a stock picker. What’s more, she started managing funds of her close friend Donna Karan, a leading US fashion designer, of the DKNY fame.

Times were so good then, that in just five months of intense trading, Streisand turned Karan’s investment of US$ 1 million to US$ 1.8 million.

Now, for all her dabbling in the risky territory of stock trading, Streisand admitted that the volatility made her nervous. As she confessed then to a friend, “I can’t stand to see red in my profit-or-loss column. I’m Taurus the bull, so I react to red. If I see red, I sell my stocks quickly.”

Well, for a die-hard fan of Streisand or a stock trader, this rule of selling stocks – whenever they are in the red – may sound like a gospel truth. In fact, some of the smartest and most successful traders would agree to the fact about cutting their losses as soon as possible.

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