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Shares are not pets April 7, 2006

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing , trackback

On Thursday, my shares in Renewable Energy Holdings briefly dipped below the 20% loss limit I'd set for myself on these more volatile AIM shares, my mailbox was flooded with alerts and I had a moment of truth.  I didn't sell them.  By the time I'd had a look, tried to figure out what was going on and thought about it some more, they'd gone back up to about a 16% loss, which is where they sit now.  Novera, which were very close to the wire, have crept up a fair bit in the last few days as well, for no reason that I can see.

Shares are not pets, and one must not be sentimental about them.  But AIM shares are also notoriously volatile, and it is possible that if I had sold automatically on it hitting 20%, I could have lost out.  Of course, if it hadn't bounced back and had continued its slide, I would now be very annoyed at myself.  I am sure that if one of the FTSE250 ones had done this, I would have knocked it on the head immediately, but my nice little greenie shares – awww…don't know about that.  This is ridiculous sentiment, but it is sentiment that has made me think about volatility, and the way these shares bounce around all over the place.

I am going to try this.  I am setting alerts, but not loss limit orders, on all these volatile AIM shares at 20% loss.  If they stay at that level for a week, I will sell.  Watch me.  I'm not sentimental.  Really. 

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