A little over two years ago, I rolled part of one of my minor retirement accounts into a self-directed ML account. Most of it went into a mut. fund but I bought ten shares of stock as well. Should I sell it or let it ride?
My Wife wants one of those new-fangled refrigerators with water, ice and TV in the door. Which means I have to tap and plumb in a water box and all that crap. I don't like crawling under my house much. (Edit... the stock has gone up to the point where she also wants a new microwave [not like the old one is bad and all].)
Leave the money where it is and finance the appliances. The interest paid on the loan would be no where near the amount of money you've made.
All depends on the fundamentals of the company. People spend way too much time looking at graphs and speculating on future performance. This is why most investors fail. Economic trends are important, but if you look at recessions the vast majority of the companies with good fundamentals going in tend to come out the other end. So you have to decide if you want to play the long game and brace an upcoming downturn, or play the short game and liquidate+diversify. If the fundamentals are strong I'd play the long game (do NOT sell during the recession no matter how tempting), if they're not I'd sell 80% and leave 20% invested in them. Put the 80% into stuff that's likely to weather the storm: stable commodities, long term bonds, a little bit under the mattress, etc.
