A Reader Writes "I disagree with your statement...."
Hello Friends! Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting my blog, Stock Picks Bob's Advice. As always, please remember that I am an amateur investor, so please remember to consult with your professional investment advisors prior to making any investment decisions based on information on this website.

Checking my mail this weekend, I saw that I had a note from my good friend Bob K. who wrote:

Hi Bob,

I disagree with your statement that you did not do very well the week of September 6, 2004...see quote below. According to my math (and following your sell formula) an equal dollar investment in all three would have yielded 48.8% -8% -8% for a net of 32.8% gain. I could live with 32%.
If you weren't willing to take a chance on those two losers how would you have found the winner? You are like Babe Ruth, some strike-outs, but the homeruns more than compensate...sort of like life. This is a great example of diversification and your practice of selling losers quickly.

And yes I did notice you were off the air and missed your blog.

Bob

First of all, thank you for writing and visiting here! You are probably one of my most loyal readers.

You make an excellent point about the losing positions. As I explained in my blog post, the actual return would be different if one used my selling strategy with these picks. I try to assume a "buy and hold" approach on these reviews because I think it gives a better assessment on how the stock actually performed. But if you were buying all of the stocks from each week, potentially the return could be better. Or at least different. As it is possible that one of my picks that actually ended up higher, might have dropped 8% and be sold before moving to a higher level.

But overall, I believe this is an excellent demonstration of the helpfulness of selling losing stocks quickly and holding on to the winners. In my own view, this represents a type of "natural selection", (or should I say "intelligent design"?) in my portfolio with the resultant stocks that "survive" being the most promising for future price appreciation imho.

Again, thank you for your continued participation here and your kind words!

Bob