Monday, 3 January 2005 - 3:33 PM CST

I think you picked a bad time to buy any stock IMHO. When I get close to the end of the year I like to wait till about mid Jan to see how the market is settling in to the new year.

Monday, 3 January 2005 - 4:22 PM CST

Tom,

You have made an interesting point about letting the end of the year trading, which is greatly affected by tax-loss selling and "window=dressing" of the mutual funds...settle in prior to making any investment decisions. That is probably a good idea.

What I have been doing is trying to get my portfolio on auto-pilot. When I sell a stock at a gain, I use that in itself as a signal to buy a new position (unless I am up to my maximum of 25 positions.) The same goes with a sale at a loss. In that case, I use that as a signal to pull in my horns, sit on my hands, and wait for another "signal" to add a new position.

Will it work better than your insightful observation? I am not sure. It will be interesting to see how it does work over the long run.

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment here on the blog!

Bob

Monday, 3 January 2005 - 6:32 PM CST

Your welcome. I really like your blog. You have some nice stocks. I too am looking for the auto-pilot approach however, as any "pilot" would tell you. It can fly the plane when its just straight flying. But, you have to land and take off and that is no time for auto-pilots. So in other words, there are market factors and trends that override stratagy or signals that you have set your self to. Keep up the good reading. This site has become one of my daily visits now to get a feel of the top gainers for the day and how they have done over time based on sound fundementals. Ugh my spelling.

Tom

Tuesday, 4 January 2005 - 9:32 AM CST

Tom,

Thanks again. I agree with market factors, etc. In the past I have traded fairly recklessly, and all of the crazy rules seem to help!

Bob