# How long do you hold on?



## systematic (19 January 2017)

Pure curiosity.

Please don't vote / answer if you consider yourself:
- a chartist
- a short-term trader

If you beat the market, you are amazing, but this question is not for you 

If you consider yourself:

'medium' or 'long-term'
'value investor'
'fundamental analyst'

or similar...please vote!

I'd like to discuss the topic, but I'm going to hold back as I'd like to see some votes and/or comments come in first.


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## PZ99 (19 January 2017)

Most of my stocks are lithium so I sell portions of my holding if a breakout happens.
I was planning to hold LPI for 12 months but they went up 70% after a month so I sold out. But the intended term is usually 12 months for me.


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## Smurf1976 (19 January 2017)

I don't have any set time.

If the stock no longer meets my criteria for having bought it in the first place then I look for an opportunity to exit.


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## systematic (19 January 2017)

Smurf1976 said:


> I don't have any set time.
> 
> If the stock no longer meets my criteria for having bought it in the first place then I look for an opportunity to exit.




Cool.  Clarifying though - to hold a stock, it needs to keep the same criteria for which you bought.  So really, there is no 'hold' for you?  A stock is either good enough to buy, otherwise it's a sell. Have I got that correct?

Thanks so much for talking about this.  Also - I know you might not have an _intended_ time set time to sell...but if you took your best punt, what do you think your average hold time ends up being?  Roughly?


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## systematic (19 January 2017)

PZ99 said:


> Most of my stocks are lithium so I sell portions of my holding if a breakout happens.
> I was planning to hold LPI for 12 months but they went up 70% after a month so I sold out. But the intended term is usually 12 months for me.




That's interesting, but have you always been a lithium investor, or do you mean that you usually have an investment theme?  Meaning - why are you so heavy in a niche?  What's the rationale; what leads you to do that?


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## PZ99 (19 January 2017)

systematic said:


> That's interesting, but have you always been a lithium investor, or do you mean that you usually have an investment theme?  Meaning - why are you so heavy in a niche?  What's the rationale; what leads you to do that?



When I started it was mostly asx200 stocks but IMO they're mostly overbought now. Too many disappointments last year. Started holding Lithium from around June and got better results. Why lithium? Not enough supply, better luck with gains plus I have no idea where the ASX is going this year.


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## ROE (20 January 2017)

I don't have a time frame, it all depending on what is happening around my life and the business I hold
some stock I hold for decades, some a few months, some a few years, some a few days 

If I decided to buy a house or help my kids with some large finance I may sell down some stocks
but otherwise I just stay invested.


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## Knobby22 (20 January 2017)

Of course the holds vary a lot but I would sat on average I hold between one and two years.


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## mcgrath111 (20 January 2017)

On average under 3 months, due to not following a strict investing plan and getting a happy trigger figure when I see the PnL in green


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## Bill M (20 January 2017)

I am retired so I mostly buy and hold for long periods. I hold primarily for the dividend income and franking credits as they are not taxable in a super pension.

I have 3 parcels of ETF's, 2 I will hold long term +10 years maybe, the other I trade in and out of and can be of any length of time, a good example of this was when our market was around the 5100 mark last year I loaded up on that ETF. At 5800 I thought it was not as good as value so I offloaded, made a profit and will re-enter at lower prices. 

So maybe 2/3rds. long term 1/3 any term.


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## Smurf1976 (20 January 2017)

systematic said:


> Cool.  Clarifying though - to hold a stock, it needs to keep the same criteria for which you bought.  So really, there is no 'hold' for you?  A stock is either good enough to buy, otherwise it's a sell.




Close.

My buying criteria are based on fundamentals of the business with the stock price also a factor since that affects return on (my) investment.

If the business fundamentals viewed from a long term perspective no longer meet my criteria then I seek an exit at a target price based on charts. One bad result isn't automatically a sell if there's reasons for that which are being addressed or are short term in nature. But if it seems likely to be ongoing then I want out.

If the only reason it doesn't meet my criteria is that the stock price has greatly increased and has dropped the yield but everything else remains sound then I'll reduce it back to a set % of the portfolio to manage the risk of a fall in the stock price and keep the rest. This rarely happens since it requires the stock price to rise significantly faster than both my overall portfolio and the company's dividends in % terms.

I'm happy to be in cash if I don't see value in stocks at the time. Stocks or cash can both be anywhere from 0 to 100% of the portfolio.

I don't generally trade "news" but will use a news-related rise or fall in the market as a selling or buying opportunity if I'm looking to sell or buy a particular stock anyway.

Funds not invested in long term stocks are available and used for short term trading of certain ETF's only. I don't short term trade individual stocks, only ETF's tracking the index, currencies or commodities. This is a sideline to my main approach of long term investing and only operates if there's cash available at the time which isn't needed for long term investing as that takes priority.

Average time I've held the stocks I have at present is 3 years and 2 months.


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## So_Cynical (20 January 2017)

Just reviewed 10 years of closed trades (12 pages ) and i would estimate an average hold of around 800 days, surprised at the volume of 1000+ days held.


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## ianna (24 January 2017)

Although it wasn't my intention I still hold a couple of stocks from before the GFC.  Almost back to purchase price now and I've collected plenty of divvies along the way.  Having held them so long I'm not sure what I'd do if/when they are positive territory!


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## PZ99 (24 January 2017)

ianna said:


> Although it wasn't my intention I still hold a couple of stocks from before the GFC.  Almost back to purchase price now and I've collected plenty of divvies along the way.  Having held them so long I'm not sure what I'd do if/when they are positive territory!



I look upon divvies as a discount on your original purchase price.
If you collect enough divvies your investment is free and you can't lose


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## PZ99 (1 February 2017)

PZ99 said:


> When I started it was mostly asx200 stocks but IMO they're mostly overbought now. Too many disappointments last year. Started holding Lithium from around June and got better results. Why lithium? Not enough supply, better luck with gains plus I have no idea where the ASX is going this year.



@systematic  Just an update on this... I was planning to hold 5 stocks (CY 2017 tips) for 1 year but one of them (KSN) got stopped out some time ago which was fortunate as it totally crashed afterwards hence my vote being less than one year. So to answer your original question I don't, as a beginner, have any real investment theme unless people want to look at this as a pump and dump deal LOL. 

But now I have to find something else


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## Valued (1 February 2017)

PZ99 said:


> I look upon divvies as a discount on your original purchase price.
> If you collect enough divvies your investment is free and you can't lose




Unless you break even in which case you lost the fact that you could be earning the risk free rate and you lost due to inflation. Breaking even on something you have held from say 2007 means you could have lost thousands of dollars because you lost the opportunity to put your money elsewhere.


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## PZ99 (1 February 2017)

Valued said:


> Unless you break even in which case you lost the fact that you could be earning the risk free rate and you lost due to inflation. Breaking even on something you have held from say 2007 means you could have lost thousands of dollars because you lost the opportunity to put your money elsewhere.



S&P/ASX 200 from 2/2007 to 2/2017 is a 2% loss.
Term deposit average 4% a year since 2007 = 48% gain
Property in struggle st NSW 2007 $250K | 2017 $450k = 80% gain minus fees
ASX:ANZ 2/2007 ($29 - $14.68 divvies) is $14.32 | 2017 is $29.30 = 105% gain

Not quite sure what you mean


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## So_Cynical (1 February 2017)

PZ99 said:


> S&P/ASX 200 from 2/2007 to 2/2017 is a 2% loss.
> Term deposit average 4% a year since 2007 = 48% gain
> Property in struggle st NSW 2007 $250K | 2017 $450k = 80% gain minus fees
> ASX:ANZ 2/2007 ($29 - $14.68 divvies) is $14.32 | 2017 is $29.30 = 105% gain
> ...




S&P/ASX 200 from 2/*2009 *to 2/2017 is a 65% gain ~ with dividends close to 100%


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## GlobeTrekker (5 February 2017)

I mostly hold LICs, I prefer to hold them until their share price starts moving to what I consider to be too high a premium to their NTA (compared to a historical average).  At this point I'll sell some, or sometimes even all of them (depending on the LIC) and move into something else until the premium drops back down or disappears.


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