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.

The market has been terribly volatile and in a funk to sayl the least.  Indices are down and the bullish tenor of the investment world is quite diminished.  To say the least.  My own personal holdings, as I am sure yours, are well below their peak value.  This is to be expected as the market cannot go forever in one direction.  All we can be certain of beyond our own sure mortality, is that values move up and down.  It does seem that in the long run, prices trend higher.

I would like to restart my blogging here.  I do not know if I have any hanger-ons from my prodigious effort at blogging some years back.  A couple of times I have tried to jump back in and then again I have gotten distracted and haven't.  I miss the discussion of investing this allows and I very much enjoy sharing my own philosophy and even my own occasional political views right here on the blog.  As always you are entitled to disagree, to suggest other thoughts or critiques of investing or politics and enter into the discussion.  All the more power to you.

This entry is not about any particular stock at this time.  We shall look at individual stocks soon.  This is about limiting losses.  Something I have really accepted after reading many different investment texts and certainly being very convinced by William O'Neil and his CANSLIM approach, is that the first rule of investing is to limit your losses. 

For O'Neil (of IBD fame), an 8% loss is his limit after an initial purchase.  This is all well and good and I accept that.  But the problem arises after selling is 'what to do with the proceeds?'.  Should one re-invest into something else?  And when?  For there is no point in taking a loss only to buy another different equity and to lose once again.  For through that strategy one is literally compounding their losses and not limiting at all.

Somehow there needs to be more effort at sitting on one's hands with the proceeds of a stock in which you have taken a loss.  I don't have a good method although in the past I have suggested that appreciation of a holding and a partial sale with a gain could be such a signal.

But I haven't generally employed that method although I have written about it in the blog.  I do sell stocks with very limited losses.  My cash component does go up in my own portfolio.  And I do look to buy 'value' stocks that have been neglected or underperforming in these periods. 

I did say I wouldn't mention stocks but I do have to tell you that I purchased some shares of Newell (NWL), and also ATT (T) recently both being what I woulsd call 'value' investments.  Not sure if that will work, but I will let you know.

Anyhow, this shall be a short entry.  I wanted to let you know that I am back at the wheel and while a bit rusty, getting ready to post some more entries especially in light of this tumultuous market.

Yours in investing,

Bob