exit
Sell for a reason, not a feeling
The rule
If you bought with care, the honest reasons to sell are few. The reason broke, a clearly better use of money, or a rebalance. Never just 'it moved'.
Where it flips
The short list can harden into never selling anything, dressing up denial as patience while a truly broken reason rots. The fix is to keep your written sell-reasons ready, and act the moment one is truly met. Few reasons, but honoured.
When a holding is chosen carefully, most price wobbles are just noise the original reason already expected. That leaves only a short list of honest sells. The reason you bought has truly broken. A clearly better use of the money has shown up. Or a rebalance is due. A price simply moving up or down is not on that list.
A worked example
A reader sells a well-chosen holding after a 20% dip, feeling scared, though nothing in the business changed. The reason was intact, so the sell was just a feeling. Months later it recovers and grows, and the ₹40,000 of booked loss was paid to an emotion. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·a sell set off by fear or the price move alone
- ·no written list of what would justify a sell
- ·'it moved' standing in for a real reason
- ·a broken reason held anyway, with patience used as an excuse
Philip Fisher · Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits