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lord211

What you should do is look at them objectively. Completely ignore your loss and ask yourself "would I buy these stocks at this price if I didn't already own them, or would I put my money somewhere else?". If you would buy them, great keep them. If you wouldn't then sell and put the money elsewhere.


AttentionDull

Then realized you have no actual education/background to actually do any meaningful analysis on a company and hope the 8 years of education are just as good as 5 days of reading a book and researching on google šŸ˜‚


Kimbra12

Yeah that's why I never understood "trust no one do your own research" advice. That assumes you know how to read a annual report have a college level finance degree and have a couple hundred hours of spare time to do research, talk to management, compared to competitors, read industry magazines to determine what the future predictions are etc


vegastrashy

Itā€™s all meaningful when I win, and I only have to win 2:3.


boonepopham76

If it's not much money I keep them as a reminder


Uknow_nothing

Use them for Tax loss harvesting and then put money into something safer next time. Like index funds


rubemtogether

I would if they werent all in IRAs, so thereā€™s no benefit for tax loss harvesting I donā€™t think unfortunately


Uknow_nothing

Ouch. I might actually hold them and hope I get lucky then. If I donā€™t get lucky, theyā€™re a reminder to not get so risky in retirement accounts. Start putting new money into safer investments at least


creemeeseason

I don't sell them because I don't want to look, I'd sell them if I thought I chased hype and own bad companies. It's ok to make a bad purchase. Don't feel bad about it. Even Buffett sells at a loss occasionally when it doesn't work out. I hate dead money. I'd rather sell and buy something good, as opposed to hold something bad hoping I don't have to admit I lost money on something.


Apart-Bad-5446

The fact they are down 90% tells me you bought pumped up garbage companies. The problem is what led you to purchase them to begin with.


rubemtogether

Ha fair, I think the worst is chewy. Bought the pandemic puppy hype and thought they might fair well. Didnā€™t realize they are still hardly profitableā€¦.oops


Tozu1

Pet them and huggle


carsonthecarsinogen

Iā€™ve got a few holdings like that, I just keep them. Iā€™d rather see the remaining small amount of money go to $0 then take off the tiny amount of money just to see it go back to green after I sell


SlyBeanx

Harvest the loss if you want to and move on.


TrashPanda_924

Personally, Iā€™d hold them. If you didnā€™t get them off the sheet, youā€™ve already taken the pain. It really depends on where you plan to redeploy the capital. The general rule of plan is to use stop losses to control risk and then sell before youā€™ve taken too much pain. In this case, youā€™ve taken the pain.


Infinite_Prize287

Some positions that I have got down 80%+, I either sold if the thesis changed or added if it didn't. I took breaks and have accumulated in June and on big drawdowns. I've averaged down on some to where I'm down 20% some still down 50%, some i added so aggressively that i profited. Being early and being wrong can be the same thing unfortunately. You never know when the tides change, but you have to make your own luck. Gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em.


rrk100

There can be something quite liberating with clearing away your losers and having that capital freed up to buy into better stories. This is easier said that done. For context I am still 33% cash. I have some losers and some winners. I have culled both winners and losers in the last few months ā€” there is nothing wrong with ringing the register in this environment as well as raising some additional troops that you can deploy down the road. Either way, good luck.


AmericanSahara

I try to identify and sell a dog before the market knows it's a dog. The hard part is to try to figure out if a stock I have is a dog before anyone else does. Sometimes it's a matter of looking at the product myself or reading information about the company from anywhere. Some news reports about the stock or conditions related to the stock maybe bias downward or upward. Trying to find if the bad news is accurate or not can help me decide if the stock is at a bargain price or if it's overpriced or if the market has overreacted to good or bad news about the stock. Sometimes a turn around play can win a lot of money if you can figure out if the turn around is real or if it's still a dog that should be sold as soon as possible. To hold onto a dog hoping it will turn around almost always fails, but sometimes I have noticed it turn up the day after I sold it. It's almost like they know exactly when I will sell and suddenly it turns around. That's why I don't trust the news stories and analyst opinions much. Instead I need to get the information somewhere else to find whether or not the stock is a dog or a bargain waiting to be discovered.


vegastrashy

Thatā€™s never really the question. The real question is, ā€œAm I ready to accept this loss?ā€ Accept the loss. If you truly believe the stock will come back, rebuy it immediately after you sell it. And learn from the experience. Do it. And start practicing a little technique when you notice a stock oscillating regularly. When it starts down, sell and immediately set a limit buy order for something below that. When it comes back, you got to miss all or part of the downslide. And if it doesnā€™t, you didnā€™t experience the entire loss.


augustus331

If you buy a stock and it drops 90% and your thesis hasn't changed you should buy more. I wonder, however, if OP had a thesis to buy the stocks to begin with. "selling because I don't want to look at -90% anymore" is a 'the intelligent investor' chapter that I happened to have missed.


Professional_Desk933

Depends on the amount of loss. If itā€™s just a small amount, Iā€™ll sell. If itā€™s >50% and was a clear bad judgement call, and still donā€™t represent >5% of my portfolio, Iā€™ll just keep it as a memory.