It's very important to have a Watch List.
I like to have about 24 stocks I keep a close eye on so that, when something happens and they go on sale, I'm ready, willing and able to pull the trigger in an instant. We did that in November, when Macy's (M) announced their earnings and we thought they were just what we wanted yet the market sold them off after the opening pop. That gave us a window to act and, because we follow M closely - we KNEW it was time to act and I issued a Top Trade Alert, identifying it as our top contender for Stock of the Year for 2018 (replacing LB, another retailer who has already flown higher).
We issued our 2017 Watch List back in March and in May we picked 13 out of 24 for action, including M as well as BMY, ESRX (still cheap), FCX, GE (cheaper), GILD, LB, PSA (still cheap), QCOM, TGT, GCI, FMCC and SEE (still cheap). So, out of 13 picks we had been watching and pulled the trigger on, 10 are winners, 2 are flat and one (GE) is down.
This is the key to understanding our system. GE was our only non-winner out of 13 picks (the flat ones make money too using our "Be the House - NOT the Gambler" system) and is still very manageable but, since they cut the dividend, we're not jumping back in yet - other than short puts.
In order to become a real investor, you have to break out of your "winning" and "losing" mind-set and that's very difficult because your broker - who wants you to TRADE, not INVEST, gives you a daily scorecard with minute-by-minute updates to encourage you to thing of your portfolio as something that should constantly be fiddled with to improve your "score".
