When To Sell A Winning Stock

It's nice to have a pick that's gone up a lot, but market vagaries can take a real chunk out of the profit. The gain might even disappear. Hence, Brian Hunt's advice when sitting on a large gain: tighten your stops.


His advice to not fall in love with a stock is good, good advice for all seasons. There's another factor that ties in with his advice to tighten stops, though: the chance that you'll get out on a secondary reaction only to see the stock move much higher. I believe the best way to cope with this outcome is to be content with the profit garnered, even though they're hard to come by, and not smart over it.