Financial Topics

May 2004   Saturday, February 4, 2012
When Selling, Don't Make These Mistakes

An important part of any investment strategy is to develop a methodology for ultimately selling your investments. Unfortunately, many investors sell based on emotional factors, making one of several mistakes:

  • Holding on to an investment with a loss. Psychologically, it's difficult for investors to sell an investment with a loss, preferring to wait until the investment at least gets back to a break-even level. However, that may never happen or may take a long time to do so. Take a hard look at the investment and consider selling if you can reinvest in an investment with better prospects.
  • Hanging on to capture more gain. When an investment has increased dramatically, you may be reluctant to sell it, even if you feel its price has gone too high too fast. There's always the risk that you'll sell and the price will keep going up. But sometimes it's best to protect your gains and sell while you're ahead.
  • Not setting price targets. One way to take the emotion out of selling is to set high and low price targets for reevaluating an investment. You don't have to sell when the investment reaches those targets, but at least review it. Sticking with rigid rules for selling when an investment declines by a certain percentage can help prevent substantial losses.
  • Trying to time the market. It's difficult to predict when the market will rise and fall. Even if the stock market is following a general trend, there will be up and down trading days. Trying to buy and sell stocks based on those daily fluctuations is difficult.
  • Worrying too much about taxes. Taxes can consume a significant portion of your investment gains. Even if you have long-term capital gains, 15% of your gain will go to capital gains taxes. However, avoiding taxes may not be a good reason to hold on to an investment. There are typically strategies that can be used to offset the tax burden, but there's not much you can do about a loss in investment value. If it's time to sell an investment, you should probably do so.
  • Not paying attention to your investments. Your portfolio needs to be evaluated on a periodic basis or you could miss signals that it may be time to sell. You should reevaluate an investment when the company changes management, when the company is acquired by or merges with another company, when a strong competitor enters the market, or when several top executives sell large blocks of stock.

[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
HOME
HOME
About David K. Sebastian

David K. Sebastian is the Team Leader of the Physicians Wealth Management Group and specializes in working with individual physicians and group medical practices. He has more than twenty-five years of experience and derives tremendous satisfaction providing advice and management for a wide array of clients’ concerns from tax reduction to asset protection, insurance, investment, retirement and estate planning.

Commitment to his clients’ financial needs and well being is a primary motivation for David.

The Physicians Wealth Management Group was specifically created to address and manage all of the unique financial challenges that doctors are facing both individually and through their group medical practices.

Just as most Physicians are specialists, what we have discovered is that most prefer to work with experts that not only understand their personal situation, but who also are proactive in developing and implementing the strategies required to remedy them.

Feel free to contact me via e-mail at
dsebastian@sfr1.com
or call me at (973) 285-3600
 

Published by David Sebastian
Copyright © 2004 David Sebastian. All rights reserved.
This newsletter intends to offer factual and up-to-date information on the subjects discussed, but should not be regarded as a complete analysis of these subjects. The appropriate professional advisors should be consulted before implementing any options presented. No party assumes liability for any loss or damage resulting from errors or omissions or reliance on or use of this material.
TELL A FRIEND
Powered by IMN