The deed has been done, my portfolio is now:
35% Walgreens
65% World Wrestling Entertainment
Let's hope Summerslam has a decent buy-rate and the WWE Network has a decent number of subscribers by the end of 2014!
I think a case can be made that $WWE is in the process of putting in a bottom. As of yet, a new bull trend is not confirmed. Good luck.
The lesson here is to look at your strategy. What you are basically doing is trading in one stock ($WAG) that is outperforming the broad market (in what is quite possibly the strongest bull market of your lifetime) for another stock ($WWE) that is significantly under-performing the broad market - and under-performing by a significant margin.
This is not to say $WWE will not outperform $WAG from here on out. But in general investing terms, one would do far better buying the strongest performing stocks in the strongest performing sectors when the broad market is bullish. Your strategy is rife with risk, increased volatility, and apt to result in emotional behaviors that will in the long run negatively impact your portfolio.
Think of trading/investing like an athlete. You want to hone behaviors that are fundamentally and technically sound. By doing so you create consistency....consistency is what brings long term success.
Top/bottoming picking is probably the single most difficult technical skill to master.
One other side-note: excluding employees vested into company IPOs - Long term I think you would come out far ahead by keeping the stock of the company you work for. Just on this page we see one person retiring by maintaining his LT position in the stock of the company he's worked for.
How is this different than timing the market?
I think every single move that a trader/investor makes - whether that be a buy or a sell - is a "timing the market move."
One only buys $XYZ today because they believe that from this point forward the price will rise.
One only sells $ABC today because they believe that from this point forward price will fall.
Both of those moves are timing moves.
Now if what we're talking about is the ability to find the absolute price bottom of $XYZ and purchase it at that precise moment/bottom - this is essentially what Eminence is attempting to do with $WWE. And what I'm saying is that this is an extremely difficult skill to master. It's not a solitary skill of just picking the bottom either. Over time and multiple trades it's a combination of skills that include a jedi-like mastery of technical analysis as well as a keen ability to properly manage the position with extreme discipline. Strictly adhering to a well thought through set of trading rules with a focus on knowing how and when to fold and how and when to hold. The win rate of this type of a market timer is low. But the gains on wins (when executed to perfection) can be extraordinarily high.
I personally like a higher win rate. And for that, I'm willing to sacrifice trying to find absolute tops/and bottoms and be satisfied with catching the "meat of the move". This is the basis trend trading.
What Em is attempting to do is very difficult to do consistently. Now it is possible on this one trade he wins. And a win might actually be the worse thing for him, because it might pattern a belief that he has a skill which he doesn't actually have.
In the same way that I could take a chimpanzee and Ben Crenshaw and have them both attempt a 50' putt. And the chimp might get lucky and sink the putt while Crenshaw might lag to 1 foot. On the basis of 1 data set the chimp would conclude he was a better putter than Crenshaw - but he would be very wrong.