What are your winners & losers today?

[fenders53]

(04-11-2021, 09:50 AM)NilesMike Wrote:

(04-11-2021, 07:12 AM)fenders53 Wrote:

(04-10-2021, 09:34 PM)NilesMike Wrote: In reality, one only needs to hit on 2-4 stocks over your investing lifetime. If you hold on to the winners.

Even with the big winners, it is a bumpy ride with very large drawdowns.

Two could get it done.  You have to find them early.  I thought I might be early enough on CSCO, MSFT, INTC and a few others but not quite.  I never had a problem with the bumpy ride.  The ones that never recovered were the ones that shook my confidence after 10+ years.

What I found interesting is that 3 giant winners-MCD-HD-MSFT all had similar graphic profiles while multi year dips that didn't recover for a loooong time.

It's actually something that aggravates me.  Everybody is Nostradamus two decades after the fact lol.  

"Just hold quality companies long term and you'll be rich!"  Yeah well maybe you will and maybe you won't.  There is no guarantee of that.  

I held three of the "Four Horseman" in the a 1990s.   MSFT, CSCO, INTC, DELL.  It was truly the FANG of the day.  Absolutely dominant names that owned their sectors!  AMZN was an overpriced joke meme stock about to lose 95% of it's market Cap in a year or two.  I made a 5X or so on MSFT, INTC, CSCO, then lost a 4X a couple years later.  Also owned the future rock stars like JDSU.  Some other huge name techs like Nortel Networks, Motorola, Lucent  etc.  Half of them filed BK or close enough.  CSCO, INTC and DELL never recovered to this day 20 years ago.  I held some of them a VERY long time.  Transferred some of the smoldering remains to JNJ and XEL.  Glad I did but it took a long time to get even.  Just lucky I didn't move it to different dogs.       

So just spare me with the profound hold no matter what narrative and it's all good words because you can't back the statement up without cherry picking with the benefit of hindsight.  The only real lesson I learned is valuation will matter eventually.  I will buy some high PEs in moderation.  I will never go all in and ride the pain of a poor entry point decision for decades.

Riding a triple leveraged ETF too long will yield the exact same result at some point if one does not have the good sense to take a profit and hide some of it in something stable for years when necessary.  My biggest concern personally is hiding places are VERY hard to find.  Half the premiere Aristocrats are arguably no more safe given their current valuations.  They were not valued like this when the tech bubble crashed in 2000.  Not even remotely close in most cases.   

Fun thread.  It is better than "I bought 10 shares of this or that today".  That thread is good for some socializing though.  It keeps us engaged.  The place would die without it.