When it comes to selling, though, even Wall Street is strangely quiet. Analysts and fund managers don't like to badmouth companies whose executives they may need for information later. And most average investors are convinced that you should buy a stock and hold it until the end of time. But recovering from a serious decline could take longer than your time on Earth. In the meantime, your money could be better spent elsewhere.
Different managers use different selling rules, depending on their overall investing philosophy.
He's an aggressive manager who loves stocks with red-hot earnings growth. His fund suffered lackluster years in 1997 and 1998 before rebounding with a 92 percent gain last year. It's down 5.8 percent this year, but he hasn't altered his strategy. Companies with white-hot earnings growth are the best companies, he said. We circle our wagons around the companies with the least amount of blemishes.