"It's normally harder to stick with a winning stock after the price goes up than it is to believe in it after the price goes down. These days if I feel there's a danger of being faked out, I try to review the reasons why I bought in the first place." -- Peter Lynch, One Up on Wall Street
Cutting your losses in a downtrodden stock is tough. You either believe the market has gotten it wrong, and you steadfastly believe your original bull thesis to be as true as ever, or you've given up and just want to get back to (or near) breakeven, so you can sell and move on.
And while it can be humbling to sell at a deep loss, there are benefits. For one, you can deduct the losses from gains in other stocks. Second, by getting rid of a loser, you have the chance to reallocate your funds to a better idea. Of course, as investors, we shouldn't decide to sell until we've gone back and reviewed the reasons we bought in the first place, to determine whether we're wrong ... or the market is.
The conundrum
With that in mind, subscribers of our Rule Breakers growth-investing service have nominated five of our underperforming stocks as candidates to be "sold" from our portfolio. Today, we're presenting the original Rule Breakers analyst bull case, as well as the community-generated bear case. Read both sides of the investment case, process the arguments, and let us know what you think.
Without further ado:
- Is Headwaters Headed in the Wrong Direction?
- Should IMAX Fade to Black?
- Time to Turn on Encysive?
- Taser: Worth the Trouble?
- Is It Time to Turn Off XM?
Brian Richards does not own shares in any company mentioned. He wishes he could invest a time machine and go back to 1979 to invest in Peter Lynch's Magellan fund.
