When my Brother in law was about 55, he had his whole retirement in xerox, he worked there his whole career. Lots of $$ built up when the stock was at $150. Then it crashed. He rode it down. When it was at about half, of what it was he bought more, all he could afford. then it went all the way down under $10. He was wiped out. He worked well into his 70's before retiring. Now, 20 years later, Xerox has never recovered. THere is no guarantee that if you ride your stocks down that they will ever recover. I paid attention. I'm 60, I want to retire before I turn 75. If I see trouble, I'm getting on the sidelines fast. I don't lose anything by taking a profit and sitting out. I lose POTENTIAL profit, but I also shield myself from potential loss.
I do the same thing as you with my money, same age, can't take a big loss, I rode it down after 9-11, never again. I noticed all the pro investors sold back then while going on tv telling everyone to stay, even the president at the time said, it will all be fine, it was not. In my defense the market was closed and I couldn't trade, pros cleaned our clocks. I sell now lose some profit but can always rebuy at least a little lower. I try to buy big name dividend paying stocks. After the 2008 crash I quadrupled my money, sold the day I knew the political party was changing, bought at 6666, it went down more. The batch of 10 stocks I had at 9-11 did finally get back to even, but is down about 30% now, I track it just to know I did the right thing. My iras are in managed accounts, and I have gotten 30 alerts this week of them selling and rebuying, so it appears bailing is the right thing to do. The pro runs the market, you will never beat them head to head, but with cash and proper timing, you can get a good piece of the action. That is the only thing that works for me. It is hard not to go after tbe latest whiz-bang stock, but you learn. My plan to buy amazon, apple, facebook, samsung is only based on the fact everyone is hooked on that stuff, hard to lose if you buy near the bottom, like within 1000-2000 points, and I need the diversity.
