I am in the process of reviving my wifes TD roth ira account which was very badly mis managed previously by a relative. The Two stocks in question at the moment are Diebold and Rig Diebold was purchased at $29 a share, 647 shares. It is now -10,545 in the red Rig was purchased at $38.53, 187 shares. It is now $4,908 in the red I hate seeing these stocks looking so poorly when I login to the account, there are so many shares that I hate to cut the losses and re invest. If the market comes back on these stocks, they could become profitable again. I wonder though how long that might take and what I could do with the current value of these stocks during that same period of time. Im curious, what would you do in this situation?
Another psychological issue that may come up, is every time you look at the account you will be hoping that those stocks come back. Whereas if you start with a clean slate, then you can look at your account in an even manner, willing to be patient. One viewpoint you can take is don't bother with where you were before; be concerned with the present. Think to yourself that you have X dollars right now, where would you best put them? If it's in other stocks or other projects, then from this viewpoint you could consider selling what you have, to give your portfolio its best chance. Another thing you could do, is just sell what you have now and buy index SPY for a few months, maybe a year for tax purposes. Get yourself on a winning track, while still taking some risk (but index is much less potential risk than individual stock).
Fortunately this is only a small portion of the account and I have everything else securely invested in stocks which are performing very well. I have only been maintaining the account for 6 months so I can anticipate growth and I have done my due diligence into the future of these two companies, however I do lack real world experience with the market experiencing a crash. I anticipate an improvement with Diebold, however Rig is at the mercy of future Oil prices. I cannot really get a gauge on what to expect from Diebold when their universal cardless atm's come to fruition and its that ambiguous time spanse that really makes me want to just dump it now. The SPY sounds interesting, I have not bothered with index funds because I have been disappointed with their returns in comparison with the rest of the market. With that said, I have not spent much time researching them, it does appear to have stable growth going back to the dip in March 2009.
Sigh... These are miserable stocks that rank terribly compared to other choices. If you have a system that works for you in place then the question to buy sell or hold never comes up...you just follow your system and shoot for beating the S&P. If you do not have the time or the gumption then as another poster stated...invest in the S&P. It's when you strive to improve you will realize that you can goose your returns from the SPY with some individual holdings...you may even master your system enough to make money in a bear market. When you reach that point you then can concentrate on eliminating risk and seeking after a smooth upward sloping equity curve. The market is driven by earnings and earning expectations...period. For the last ten years every sell-off represents a buying opportunity. As long as Trump is President, I am bullish.
