# At what point do you sell? Even if it is intended long hold?



## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

I have a 17% gain on AQN and bought it as a long term hold, but, 17% growth is a nice amount. I have a very long term horizon and no need for the funds.

Anyone share some experience?


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## CalgaryPotato (Mar 7, 2015)

Why did you buy it?

Does the same hold true today?

Never sell a stock just because it did well (or poorly), only sell it if you expect it to do less well in the future than the original reason you bought it.


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## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

CalgaryPotato said:


> Why did you buy it?
> 
> Does the same hold true today?
> 
> Never sell a stock just because it did well (or poorly), only sell it if you expect it to do less well in the future than the original reason you bought it.


bought it for its exposure to renewable sources and seems to be doing quite well in a diversified energy space, with whats going on with oil, i saw this as a place for some longer term growth especially as canada is looking to move towards that with the carbon tax


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## TomB16 (Jun 8, 2014)

I'd like to help you but I cannot. If I knew precisely when to buy and sell stocks, I would be God.


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## hboy54 (Sep 16, 2016)

Hi:

This brings up the "sell to book a profit" thinking that is prevalent. I argue that the profit is there whether or not you sell it, but I suspect almost nobody agrees with me.

Consider, you sell your AQN for 17%, then buy something else that declines by your AQN gain. How is this better that just holding AQN which also perhaps declines by the AQN gain? At the end of the day a round trip between $100 to $117, and back to $100 again is equivalent whether done with one, two, or 20 stocks, no?

So I focus on portfolio weighting. If my target weighting is say 5%, and a holding inches up to 7 or 8%, I sell some to get back towards the target. Similarly, if it gets down to 4, 3, 2%, I add to inch back towards the target weighting. Really just the same thinking of asset allocation the folks do between bonds and say a stock ETF holding.

A real example from my portfolio is OSB. It was over target a couple months back, so I sold some at $38. Lousy timing as I sold more yesterday at $42. Sure would be nice to have the $4 difference on the shares sold at $38, but I am no better at selling at the highest possible price than I am buying at the lowest. It is sitting at 9.2% of portfolio with a target of 10%, so right on plan. What I am successful at over the years, decades even, is letting someone have the first 20%, someone else have the last 20%, and being happy with the 60% in the middle. Over 12 years or so, my cost for all time in OSB is something like say $12, so someone else got the $6 or so between the decade low of about $6 and my $12. Similarly, somebody else got the $4 between $38 and today. I have made a good living on the $12 to $38. This is just approximate, for I have sold and bought in the $20s too over the years, but if I did the research down to every last penny over 12 years, I would find that I am pretty close to claiming the 60% in the middle.

So to my way of thinking, a 17% gain in a short period is not actionable.

hboy54


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## Oldroe (Sep 18, 2009)

Why am I buying this stock?

Is one of the major research question I ask. Before I buy the answer is clear, when I meet this goal assessment on future growth. But I have itchy trigger.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

TomB16 said:


> I'd like to help you but I cannot. If I knew precisely when to buy and sell stocks, I would be God.


 ... lol! but holds true ... either you're God or a time-traveller?


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

redsgomarching said:


> I have a 17% gain on AQN and bought it as a long term hold, but, 17% growth is a nice amount. I have a very long term horizon and no need for the funds.
> 
> Anyone share some experience?


I have a +100% gain on ACQ. I won't sell unless they change focus or management objectives. Better to look at your dogs to sell, keep the out performers.


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## jerryhung (Mar 28, 2011)

You never know
Most people (myself included) sell the winners and kept the dogs 

I did 2 buy-and-sell of AQN within last year I think (1st from their new issue then sold around $12?, then 2nd in 2017, sold for 12% gain ~$12.7)
https://www.google.ca/finance?q=TSE:AQN

You never know if it'll go down, but nothing wrong with taking 17% profits
Similar stocks - I wished I sold H at $26 (now $24) or ALA at $35 (now $31), or ENB at $59 (now $57) or ENF at $36 (now $33-$34)


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

I hold AQN. I wouldn't even think about selling unless it was $15 or higher. They have a > 4.5% yield and faster growth than most mid/large cap utilities. And it's majority US based now, which is even better considering where the Cdn dollar has gone. Fantastic diversification.


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## lifeliver (Aug 30, 2010)

Maybe trail a stop loss order to lock in your profits without actually selling now. If price starts to go against you it will close out the position for you.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

In my non registered account i am working to further diversify my holdings. That is why I partially sell winners

So when any of my original stable of holdings bought in at 10k increments poke much above 13k at the end of any one quarter.
That is when I look to re-balance and buy anew. 
The hgh fliers , they get a hair cut. I sell the 2k or so and put the holdings back to about 11k
11k is what most of the original 10k have crept up to. (They were picked for solid dividends not just capital appreciation.)

Then the 2k or so capital gain gets bundled with accrued dividends, and some fresh cash in from wage earnings surplus to buy anther company for about 11k.
So far the duds ( at the time) - down-trending and no sign for a pull up that I could see -get sold wholesale for the capital loss. It counters the CG, and gets the dying funds back into something that hopefully gets some life into it.

Most recent strategy is to read the weekly lows and to see if good companies that have missed a quarter of analysts expectations is the only thing in the long term that has put them there. I have made modestly good money over the following half year as the stock price trends up.


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## Parkuser (Mar 12, 2014)

edited


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

I like stocks that go up. I don't like stocks that go down. So, when I buy a stock I put in a stoploss order below today's price. How far below? That requires judgement and some knowledge of support and resistance levels but, my stops are usually pretty tight, average about 10% below the low. If the stock keeps going up, I raise the stoploss every week or 2. If it goes down I am stopped out. Simple and no anguish or second guessing. You could look over your portfolio calmly today and put on stoplosses for next week and avoid having to make snap judgements in the heat of battle as it were.

To put it another way what would you consider a normal reaction from today's price? Put your stoploss just below it.

Incidentally I like selling losers and adding to winners although, I know you didn't ask that. In other words if I was up 17% I would be thinking of buying more not selling.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Depending on the taxation status, I would sell the holding and repurchase half. This reduces my exposure but I stay in the game. I would take the profit and buy another upcomer. If I did not have one, I would not sell.


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## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

kcowan said:


> Depending on the taxation status, I would sell the holding and repurchase half. This reduces my exposure but I stay in the game. I would take the profit and buy another upcomer. If I did not have one, I would not sell.


all in TFSA.


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## Ag Driver (Dec 13, 2012)

I am primarily and indexer now, but still buy good blue chippers from time to time that I don't mind holding for long term. I sell at 30% and wait for the next ticker that is on sale. This is a completely arbitrary number that has been working for me.


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

redsgomarching said:


> Anyone share some experience?


I won't bother with sharing experience for two reasons:
1/ you probably wouldn't believe me
2/ the long knives would come out with the usual wisdom such as 'how could you be so stoopid'.

However, because of that unshared experience, I now keep a strict rule of selling half the position when the stock doubles. That doesn't happen very often though, because more often than not, the share price plateaus or dips severely before it has a chance to double, and I'm happy getting off the ride with whatever I have.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

FWIW, I also own AQN and have no plans to sell it. ACB is well under $10 per share. 

Hold, stay the course, reinvest dividends. Unless it stops paying an increasing dividend, it stays in my portfolio.

Unlike Rusty....I like it when stocks go DOWN.

I would be happy and cheer for a 20% market decline right now, and if prices stayed that way for a couple of years.

Upon retirement however, maybe I won't feel the same!


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## CPA Candidate (Dec 15, 2013)

Most of the selling I do is to control the size of a given position (ie its become too large a percent of the portfolio). If that's not the case and the future looks good, hold the stock.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

redsgomarching said:


> I have a 17% gain on AQN and bought it as a long term hold, but, 17% growth is a nice amount. I have a very long term horizon and no need for the funds.
> 
> Anyone share some experience?


Do you have somewhere better to put the money? Be sure to consider tax implications.
If so, move it, if not hold it.

I'd also trim a position if it is too large. One of my earlier stock purchases was Google, over time it grew to be a substantial portion of my portfolio, so I sold off some to balance out a bit.

In retrospect I could have made more money keeping that stock longer, but with the massive increases it would be close to half my portfolio. Buying some Amazon, BIP & BEP seems to have worked out not too bad anyway.


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## golfdude (May 26, 2017)

Another recommendation for only trimming winners. Earlier I used to sell out entire positions and those are my biggest regrets. Just because I thought MA was getting ahead of itself after quadrupling, it was a bad decision to sell it all. Everyone should acknowledge that they are not the world's best stock-picker and if something keeps going up, don't sell out the whole position. If you limit your exposure to any given stock, it is so much easier to stomach downswings and let your winners ride.


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## Fraser19 (Aug 23, 2013)

Well this is what I do. 

I am about 60% TD index funds and 40% stocks. No fixed income.
I do have a stop loss set on all of my stocks. Once they are triggered they go into the index funds.

It is not common for me to find a stock that really sticks out to me as something I can make some quick money on. Ideally all of them I would like to be long term holds but in the short time I have been invested I have seen companies with good reputations fall pretty hard.

Like you I also have AQN and re-adjusted my stop loss today. If it gets triggered I will be up 20%. Nothing wrong with that in my mind.

But to be completely honest, my index funds have out performed my stock picks.

The more I do this, I become less and less interested in individual stocks.


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## crgf1k (Aug 8, 2015)

I would only consider selling when it leaves that beautiful uptrend!


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## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

im glad i held based on the fact that there is no reason to sell other than to keep the gain. would have missed out on another + 8% in gains!


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## Kropew (Nov 24, 2013)

valuation, valuation, valuation. Its always a matter of valuation when it comes to holding or selling


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