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Byline: DAVID SAITO-CHUNG
This series has aimed to help every investor know the value of good sell rules.
If individual investors used them these past few years, just imagine how much in losses could have been avoided.
Of course, making money in stocks requires competence on a variety of fronts. Yet no matter what kind of market we're in, mastering the skill of selling correctly is perhaps more important than knowing what and when to buy.
It doesn't matter if you're a day trader, swing trader, contrarian, intermediate-term holder or long-term investor. Protecting your portfolio on the downside is the first step to making big gains on the upside. You can only do that by selling bad stocks fast. As IBD founder William O'Neil says, every stock is bad, except for the ones that go up.
Most of the rules detailed in the 17 previous columns over the past three weeks apply in any kind of market and any kind of stock.
Among them: Limit losses to no more than 7% to 8%. Get out fast when a stock falls quickly below its pivot after the breakout (please see Jan. 10 column). Watch out for crumbling industry leaders (Jan. 13 column). Late-stage ...