What to do with dogs?

[rephioh]

I am holding some Cramer dogs (recommendations that did not work for me). What to do?

Anglo American PLC
Conoco Phillips
Encana
FMC Technologies
Inco
Rollins
Total SA
Time Warner

In addition, I own some mutual funds (that he did not recommend) that are commodity company based. They are good funds, according to Morningstar, but down at this time from where I entered. My total losses have been as much as 13K. Right now, they are about 7K or about 2.6% of my total investment.

It may be that Cramer gave the word to sell on some of these, and I did not watch the show; he shouts a lot. In any case, would someone kindly suggest what to do?

[optimus25]

I don't want to tell you what to sell but I think you need to take a look at your overall holdings and figure out what you're willing to hold in the long term. Some suggestions would be to add a couple of Blue Chip financials to your portfolio. I like Cramer's pick Wachovia but I also recommend Citigroup and BAC.

If you're a long term investor it is also important to take into account your age and holding period.

I don't really follow morningstar recommendations too much because once they turn into 5 star funds then most of the growth is probably already priced in. Its more important to look at the fund fees as well as the fund managers track records. The longer a fund manager is with the fund the more consistent his track record should be. Be wary of funds in which fund managers have only been in place for a couple of years.

[englishman26]

Yeah - it really depends on the long term prospects for the company and whether you're prepared to hold it having done the research and figured out that they will become good stocks again.

A lot of people would argue that you're better off selling and making your money back faster somewhere else. Sometimes I think a loss and waiting for a recovery is simply because human psychology can't take a loss. But money is the same whereever it's growing (or dying) so if you can make your money back faster somewhere else, then you might as well move it! I mean think about - you move your money to a better stock, make your loss back, and if you still love the original company for some reason, and the price is still down, then you can buy it back. It's simple stupid human psychology that prevents us from doing this.

(Added to which some long term investors don't want to deal with market fluctuations and don't need to see their money for 20 years! It's up to you!)

I have a 10% loss rule, unless there is some inate volotiliy in the stock added to a future catalyst event that I believe in, that hasn't occured yet.

Of course I've totally ignored all of this good advice in my holding of Encana! :?

Lot's of people like Citigroup as a financial at the moment.

Small financials are ripe grounds for a bit of takeover speculation, if you want to get into that! There were a few picks on CNBC this morning although I can't remember any of them!

[deepinwonder]

That is excellent advice Optimus and englishman gave you.

Also consider making a list of all your stocks, do some more homework on them, then number them according to what you'd like to do... for instance, some you might want to buy more of on pullbacks, some you would want to sell on spikes, some you would want to hold onto for the longer term, some you want to get out of asap, etc. Cramer has a numbering system like that, but I forget what it is. Maybe someone else knows... just remember, it's not where a stock has been or is now that matters as much as where it's going.