With market volatility picking up this past week, now is as good a time as any to review why it’s important to take your losses early.
| Portfolio Loss | Gain Required to Break Even |
|---|---|
| (10%) | 11% |
| (20%) | 25% |
| (30%) | 43% |
| (40%) | 67% |
| (50%) | 100% |
| (60%) | 150% |
| (70%) | 233% |
| (80%) | 400% |
| (90%) | 900% |
| (97%) | 3,233% |
If you lose 10%-20% in a trade, it’s not that hard to recover. It only takes 11% – 25% to get back to where you started.
But if you lose 50%, you need 100% returns to get back to break even. Or if you lose 97% — as Bill Ackman recently did in Valeant Pharmaceuticals — you’d need a ridiculous 3,233% on your next trade just to get back to zero.
I have a select few stocks in my portfolio that I’m truly willing to buy and hold, tolerating whatever volatility the market throws at me. As an example, I own some shares of Realty Income (O) that I will never sell. I’m reinvesting the dividends and letting them compound, and I’m willing to sit through a significant drawdown.
But for the lion’s share of my portfolio, I take my losses early. I’ve taken enough losses over the years to learn that lesson the hard way…
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