Question:  When should I sell?

Answer:  No one knows.

Whether a long-term investor, short-term investor or speculator, no one wants to own a loss  --  or be left holding a 'shrinking' bag.  So when a stock you own goes up providing a profit, when is it time to sell?  And when a stock you own goes down providing a loss, when is it time to sell?

History Really Is Capable of Teaching Those Who Are Willing To Learn:

Joseph P. Kennedy and the "high-rollers" who operated within pools sold on Thursday, October 24, 1929  ---  five days before the massive public selling initiated the crash which reached bottom in approximately mid-1931.

Re:  The Answer For Today

Most of us will not buy at the bottom nor sell at the top.   However, it is possible to be lucky.  Perhaps Joseph P. Kennedy and other large stock market (and stock pool) participants knew they each had ridden the bull market to a very high plateau and agreed to exit on Thursday.  Interestingly, prices opened that day little changed even though the market had become more volatile each week over the spring and summer of 1929.  Perhaps the specialists and pool participants agreed to hold prices steady and allow for an orderly sale of the pool member's portfolios in the opening hours on Thursday.  Perhaps once that liquidation had been completed, prices were allowed to decline.  Later that day major bankers gathered and put up enough money to appear to buy enough stock to quell the fear and forestall the tide of selling.

Friday's, Saturday's and Monday's trading passed without massive selling.

The big crash occurred on Tuesday.  Consider human psychology, mass communication of that era, and margin calls being received in the U. S. mail and note that phone calls and their messages notifying customers of margin calls may be delayed.   Perhaps these elements coincided and resulted in the confluence of public selling on Tuesday.

It was six weeks before the decline reached a somewhat stable plateau.

From November 14 through about the next eight months prices recovered about 25%.  Then came the final down-leg and the bottom was reached in 1931.

It was 25 years  --  1954  --  before the Dow-Jones Industrial Average again reached its level of October, 1929.

Time To Wait:

Since none of us has that sort of time to wait for our investments to recover, perhaps a wise investor takes reasonable profits and cuts losses.  This may be an especially wise tactic and strategy in volatile markets where, by most measures, prices are excessively high.

Perhaps the time to sell is when there are enough warning signs indicating it is time to sell.

Few men are wise as they look ahead, but any man left standing can see yesterday.

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