I want you "newbs" to look at more than just the shares YOU own on down days. I want you to see your pops and drops in PERCENTAGES... because down .50 cents on a $100 stock is no big deal percentage wise.
I want you to compare the percentage drops in your stocks that pay dividends versus the "hot stocks" that don't. Learn from these kinds of days and weeks and months. How do you feel when you see your paper gains dripping away. I've reminded people many times to make note of how they feel when everything is going up day after day - and to remember that - because there will come a time when they stop going up and they start going down....
On days and weeks like this -- look at the GoPro drops - Look at Facebook drops - look at Tesla... and look at them in percentage terms - and compare to your stocks... Take Altria (MO) today -- it was UP three quarters of a percent GoPro was DOWN over 4.5%. Facebook was down almost 4%. Tesla was down almost 8%. AT&T was down barely over 1%. Realty Income (O) was down just about a half percent. WHY?? Because these dividend payers are supported price wise by the dividends!! It cushions them on the way down. Now you also have to remember that in a month or two YOU'LL be getting a cash dividend that helps ease the pain.
Now -- if any of this shakes you up just a tad - and you start to doubt your strategy... GO LOOK AT A 5 YEAR CHART of your stocks... look at how squiggly that line is! It's not straight up - there's all manor of drops (and pops). Does the line still go from lower on the left side of the chart to higher on the right side?? Yep? Then get over your angst knowing that 1 year - 2 years - 3 years down the road you will never remember this week or this month or even this quarter.
If you're a buyer..... KNOW that no matter what you pay - at some point you could have bought it cheaper. Get over it. A buck or two a share on a 100 share purchase is not what you're after. You're after that dividend quarter after quarter year after year... and the capital gain will come.
NOW --- Let's talk LIMIT ORDERS. I bought 4000 shares of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) today. 2000 shares with a limit order early this morning at 58.85 a share - it took awhile to get executed. Then as the day got worse I stuck another 2000 limit order in at 58.50 it got executed. So my average is 58.68 per share. Luck for me - this closed at 60.30
I used the LIMIT ORDER to try to get shares at lower prices than where they were trading and it worked. I also stuck in a bid (a limit order) for TESLA (TSLA) at $235.00 a share -- It did NOT get executed. I'm okay with that. I don't feel the need to buy this minute or this hour or this week even. If I can get the shares lower in a market like this then great. If not - OH WELL.... But I'm on top of the market every day - most of the day... If you're NOT.... and you're not buying 100's of shares at a time - then does .50 cents one way or the other really matter? No - it really doesn't. So this strategy is on an "it all depends" basis. If you like to learn from doing this - regardless of the size of your trade - okay! Nothing wrong with preparing yourself for when you are able to play a little deeper. Sometimes it's all just about learning. Look at your car builds - your first build was not a 2000hp twin turbo road killer... you gained skills a little here and a little there. That's how it's done.
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