The real difference, I believe is that you are a position trader and I am a swing trader. I would say that most position traders buy a stock with the hope that they will be able to hold on to it forever or at least until they retire and at that point they will be rich. Or, they hold on to it until they finally become convinced that it will no longer continue going up because it has been going down for a long time. I started out as a position trader but, after reading a lot of books on investing and doing my own research and applying what I had learned, I now believe that in today's market place, the vast majority of position traders will end up losing money or at best profiting less than a well educated swing trader. So, I take profits when I have them and as long as I continue to feel the pulse of a stock, I'll trade it but, when I encounter one without a pulse or a weak pulse, I stay away all together. What I fail to understand is how position traders will hold on to a stock through 40% or 50% price swings in the price and believe they are doing the right thing by holding on to that stock. To me, it's analogous to guy who loved his 1958 Edsel so much that he bought a dozen of them in 1961 when it was discontinued so he could keep them in a warehouse for the parts and would be able to keep drive his Edsel until the day he died. That poor sole never realized that the could have been driving a new car every single year for what he had invested in total just trying to keep his old Edsel alive. My 2-cents on the matter.
