A bit of advice for anyone managing their own portfolios

1. Immediately after buying a security, determine how much you're willing to sell it for.

2. The above number should change based on time - e.g. depending on the volatility of a particular stock I might be willing to sell for a 10% profit within the first month, then 15% within the second month, then an additional 3% per month up to a maximum of 45% profit within a year. After that, since it would be a long-term gain taxed at a lower rate, I might adjust it to wanting a 30% profit, and perhaps add 1% per month. This is all hypothetical; I actually have a spreadsheet which rates the stocks I'm interested in by volatility, and it will tell me the exact percentage per month I'm aiming for,

3. Just learned this one the hard way today: I have been putting in sell orders at a limit price, but not bothering to put in a sell order until the stock reaches 85% of my desired sell price. So, in this particular instance, I had a target price of $32.50 by June 2 for 60 shares of GCO (Genesco) which I had bought for $27.00 on April 2, and the stock was currently trading at $27.30. That was 84% of my sell price. What were the odds it would go up that much within the next day or two, I thought. Not worth the time and energy to put in a sell order. So I skipped it. Well, in early trading this morning, it suddenly sheared up and hit $33.50 before settling back down to $28.50 by the day's end. If I'd spent 5 minutes putting in the order yesterday, I'd have made a nice $330 (20% gain in only 2 months). So, live and learn. From now on, I'll spend the 5 minutes - probably less - to put in a limit sell order if the stock is within, say, 80% of my sell price. If I get burned again, I could even drop that to 75%.

Bottom line: Time is money. Yes, someday (probably within the year) GCO will hit 32.50 again - but that could be months later, and my sell price will have gone up by then. A 20% gain in 2 months is not the same thing as a 20% gain in 6 months. Or a 20% gain in 12 months. As Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." Or, in this case, the prepared investor.