To me 'buy and hold' means from a financial advisor, "I dont know where it is going" I have experienced this first hand, like you. After many years of doing it myself, it came to a point where my size was a issue to me and was afraid of making a mistake. I put my portfilio in the hands of an advisor. I remember the days of 2000. "I think we need to trim some holdings here", no, no, you are in it for the long term...we need to stop our loses here...no no...its too late...you are in it for the long term. Well, to say the least my portfolio was ripped to shreads and I have been steadily regaining and repairing the damage. My early interest in gold from 01 was a homerun and I have been lucky.
My advise to you is to pass on what I have trying to do. That is take the emotion out of the trade. I look at the charts. do some calculations and come up with a buy/sell and enter them in my order. The buy/sell order might be good for a day, week, what have you, but what effectively happens is that the price of a stock more often than not comes to me, and when the buy is on a technical level of support, the odds are in my favor. What if the trade goes against me? Then a stop is entered below a technical level to take me out in my absence. Simple observations of support/resistance can work.
Sounds simple. It isn't. I know that.
So before entering a trade, ask yourself, "What are my potential gains from here (to resistance)?, "What are my potential losses (to support)? Am i willing to take that risk? In other words what is my risk/reward?
Also pick a number of indicators to work with
I find the combination RSI, DMI and MACD to be powerful combinations and gets one out of trouble most times. Others use CCI, that is good too.
Good luck.
