How Do I Know When To Sell A Stock? [Cisco Systems, Inc., International Business Machines Corp., The Home Depot, Inc., NIKE, Inc., Medtronic, Inc., Pitney Bowes Inc., The Clorox Co, Automatic Data Processing, Sherwin-Williams Company] - Seeking Alpha: The most common complaint that I have heard from investors over my 40 years in the financial services industry is as follows: "Everyone wants to tell me what to buy and when, but no one ever tells me when to sell."
Not only do I consider this a legitimate complaint, I also consider it an extremely important investing principle that investors face and must deal with. Knowing when it's the appropriate time to sell a stock can be a very challenging task. But perhaps most importantly, the prudent investor must simultaneously recognize and accept that it can rarely, if ever, be done with perfect precision. In other words, as the old saying goes, they do not ring a bell at market tops or bottoms on Wall Street. Consequently, the best that an investor can expect to accomplish is to make sound and rational sell decisions.
Not only do I consider this a legitimate complaint, I also consider it an extremely important investing principle that investors face and must deal with. Knowing when it's the appropriate time to sell a stock can be a very challenging task. But perhaps most importantly, the prudent investor must simultaneously recognize and accept that it can rarely, if ever, be done with perfect precision. In other words, as the old saying goes, they do not ring a bell at market tops or bottoms on Wall Street. Consequently, the best that an investor can expect to accomplish is to make sound and rational sell decisions.
