I don't mind being compared to your mother.
My mother, a widow, has been managing her own finances fairly well. However, she is a very risk-averse investor. She bought Intel stock based on a recommendation from my brother. At that point, I was only invested with mutual funds and was not following individual stocks.
When I heard that she waited patiently just to bail-out at the break-even point, I asked why she couldn't wait a little more as the stock was rising. She said that she thanked her lucky star just to be made whole and did not want to press her luck!
No offense to you, Dawg, but I have read time and time again that buy, sell, or hold decisions should be made solely on whether you think the stock will rise or fall from its
current price. The price where you bought should be of no concern.
In my mother's case, Intel could also have gone down the tube while she was waiting for it to recover to where she bought it. She was looking at the price, but did not ask why it was going up or down.
At the point she was selling, Intel was recovering from some problems and went on to become THE dominant processor supplier for the ensuing PC boom. Knowing that, she could have hanged on to it a little longer. Now, of course she could have reached a different prediction about Intel's role in the computer industry, but at least it would be a better reason to sell the stock.
OK, you may say that how would an old woman know about a tech stock? Then, just as she bought it based on my brother's recommendation, she could have asked him on the sell decision, as he followed this stock.
