No Sell = No Gain

While doing review on year 2018 & 2019, I wrote that my Hevea shares which was finally sold below my entry price, was once sitting on a paper gain of more than 100%.

The other stock which suffered similar fate is Leon Fuat. I just checked that it went up highest to 98.5sen in Jan18 before dropping to the level below my cost of 50.5sen in Dec 2018 (43.5sen now). However, it's still a bit short of registering 100% paper gain.

I used to record all the stocks with 100% paper gain. I search through this blog and found out that the last time I wrote about this was in My Portfolio Jan17.

"Notion becomes the 11th stock in my portfolio since mid-2013 to ever break 100% gain mark, after Tambun, Inari, Gtronic, Latitude, Geshen, HHGroup, Hevea, Scientex, AWC & KESM."

Out of these 11 stocks with so-called 100% paper gain, how many of them really achieve 100% realized gain?

Currently I still hold shares of Inari, Latitude, Scientex & Notion. Apart from Scientex which I hold tight, I have sold some shares of the other three.

I record all my previous completed buy/sell transaction in "History" page of this blog.

Tambun - 141%

Inari - haven't sold all shares but confirmed will be >100%

Gtronic - 98%

Latitude - haven't sold all shares, will be >100% if current price >RM2.20

Geshen - 195%

HHGroup - 105%

Hevea - 10%

Scientex - still holding, so far 245%

AWC - 173%

KESM - 210%

Notion - haven't sold all shares, will be >100% if current price >80sen 

So out of those 11 stocks, two (Gtronic & Hevea) have failed to registered >100% realized gain. 

In year 2019, two other stocks have breached 100% paper gain mark, they are Frontken & PPHB. However, if I do not sell, it is still possible to end up like Hevea, isn't it?

For me, to buy shares is easy, but it's always difficult to sell. Those who follow my blog long enough may notice this.

Gtronic is another one I can remember well where its share price rose to almost RM7 before I finally sold at RM4.27 (my cost RM2.43). After selling, the share price went up back to RM7... I sold when the price was so much below the peak. Same thing goes to Latitude & KESM as well.

I admit that I am somehow falling in love with the stocks I own because I feel like I own a great company and proud to be part of it. So I'm always reluctant to sell.

The first stock I bought was WCT. When I went to The Curve Mall I told my wife that I built this mall. When I watched Abu Dhabi F1 I felt like I built the track for those drivers to race.

This is a trap in stock market investment which I'm well aware of, and I tried to rectify it. One strategy I'm using is sell part of my shares until all remaining shares are "free".

I used this method in KESM and it backfired. I sold part of my holding at RM20 and already took home handsome realized gain much more than my cost at RM4.24.

I waited until the share price dropped to RM8.50 to sell the remaining shares. The RM11.50 "loss" on each share was quite enormous for me!

No one can always sell at the highest price, but something like my Hevea or LeonFB is just unacceptable. 

However, if I sell earlier, there may not be any stocks with 100% gain...