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.

Market declines and sell-offs are painful if you are sitting in long positions instead of being the short-seller hoping for such corrections.  I have a long list, as I am sure you do as well, of stocks that are moving in multi-percentage drops today.

As part of what I do to manage my portfolio, I have a disciplined strategy for selling stocks that either hit an 8% loss after a first purchase (unfortunately WOOF is close), or selling at 'break-even' if I have sold a partial position after a single appreciation target has reached.  Otherwise, if I have sold more than one time, my sale point remains at 50% of my highest partial appreciation target.  That is, if I have sold a stock four times (at 30, 60, 90 and 120% points), then I plan on selling all remaining shares if the stock should retrace to a 60% gain point.

I discuss this because if you do not have any plan on dealing with market corrections, then you will not know when you wish to sell and will need to basically 'shoot from the hip' and take your best shot at a strategy.  You may well do better than I do with my idiosyncratic approach.  I am afraid that my strategy is slow to react, but then again, I try to avoid being whipsawed in my holdings. 

Rest assured that my own portfolio is hitting the skids hard today.  I am seeing many of my paper gains deteriorate, but it is the combination of disciplined selling of stocks, both when times are good and when times are bad, that I am banking on for long-term success.

In order to respond to market influences, if any of my stocks do hit sales on the downside, then I shall be selling those shares and "sitting on my hands" with the proceeds to avoid compounding my losses by reinvesting at the wrong time.  This process of avoiding re-investing will tend to move my portfolio from equities towards cash automatically in the face of market declines.  The reverse should also be true.

Good-luck!  I hope I shall not need to post any sales today, but I shall be ready to part with even my favorite of recent stocks if the price moves dictate that action.

Bob