I know this is OT but may I please chime in for one more reply to what BobbyBe said. If you are in taxable account (most of my port is), keep in mind that if you sell at a high and timed it perfectly and bought at the low, then awesome!!! Doubt any of us are capable of knowing exactly when those times are. But think about selling when you think market is overheated, paying capital gains/ordinary income + state income taxes, then missing out on some run up, and then thinking that market bottomed out and buying back (after paying taxes so right then and there you have to make up that difference vs. just staying in) only to see things go down more… As ugly as it gets. MF has basic example of $1000 staying invested for 10 years vs. $1000 invested and withdrawn even at favorable tax rate at 1 year + 1 day and reinvested. Simple math of compounding of $1000 staying invested for 10 years vs. $1000 + $85 = $1, 085 which is return you get after first year with gains minus taxes on the gains (gains $100, but you only get to keep $85, if you are in no capital tax state so only paying min 15% tax to federal) and so on if you keep selling every year, paying taxes and reinvesting vs. staying in compounded. Of course, this is completely out of the window if something within the company changes. Art of buying is much less worth than art of knowing when to sell for the right reasons.
Make no mistake though please, to this day I still have this thinking that “What if I sold off in Nov 9th when I was at ATH, how I could just do this and that and quit my job if I really wanted to”? And then I go back and look at sells and buys that I made with smaller part of my portfolio and it most certainly didn’t work out in my favor by a long shot.
Many thanks to Saul and this board for keeping up educating people.
And like BobbeyBe said, every mistake I made, I own it and don’t blame a single person. And I am absolutely not sure at all that last three days rally means we have hit the bottom. In fact, I was SURE that Feb 24th morning was the bottom and then I hit quite lower bottom on March 14th.