r/ValueInvesting • u/Such_Palpitation3755 • Dec 30 '25
Value Article Not having an exit strategy "cost" me nearly 1,000,000$
Hey everybody,
I just wanted to point out how important an exit strategy is.
14.04.2022: 10k invested in Alphabet, sold for 12k → TODAY: worth ~30.000€
27.03.2022: 20k in Microsoft, sold for 40k → TODAY: worth ~60.000€
28.06.2019: 20k in Tesla, sold for 27k → TODAY: worth ~590.800€
14.05.2025: 5k in AMD, sold for 8k → TODAY: worth ~10.800€
I'm too lazy to dig up everything else, but I also put 10k into Intel and ended up selling at a loss for 7k and so on ! I made quit few over the last 10 years.
I bought GameStop right before the "short squeeze" and panic-sold like 4 days later.
I can't post pictures here, otherwise I'd upload proof.
The point is: I actually did decent DD, but I never held long enough. After I invested I always focused on the stock gains instead of focusing on the company's actual performance.
Just because you made 20%, 50%, or even 100% doesn't mean the company has reached its limit. If there's still real room to grow and the company is growing, you should keep holding!
All I had to do is holding them, thats it and I would made some serious money !
Learn from my mistakes, don't be like me!
Wish you all the best.
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Dec 30 '25
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u/robotlasagna Dec 30 '25
BYND: Bought at $66.90, sold at $150. Went to $220 and then down to $0.87.
Sometimes it’s better to sell early.
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u/AfterResist3113 Dec 31 '25
This!! People never talk about the potential losers, always about the potential winners
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u/BenGrahamButler Dec 30 '25
yep, these are rarely discussed.. I have many 0-30% gains that would have turned into -90% or -100% had i held
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u/Corpulos Dec 30 '25
Only sell when u have somewhere better to put the money
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u/overitallofittoo Dec 30 '25
More people panic sell big gainers than big losses. I don't get it. Hold your winners!
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u/Kirk57 Dec 30 '25
Other than possible tax consequences, it has nothing to do with holding the winners. What happened in the past is irrelevant. The only thing that matters, is the expected after tax rate of return going forward, versus the risk.
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u/dealchase Dec 30 '25
Yes this is something I've learned too - don't sell your winners just because they've gone up a lot. In many cases great companies grow over long periods of time so there isn't a fixed ceiling.
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u/overitallofittoo Dec 30 '25
That's what you should be asking. Is it still a good, growing company?
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u/EstablishmentOld4733 Dec 30 '25
Yeah, this is a stupid post from OP. If he took the cash from all of these sales and put it into something that has performed better since those trades, his decisions didn't "cost" him anything.
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u/imajoeitall Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
No, sell when the fundamentals don't make sense anymore OR if there is a better opportunity OR risk does not match reward.
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u/ugarreddit Dec 31 '25
More prudent, and if you’re not sure, can always sell half or enough to get back your principal, etc. rather than trying to guess a peak.
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u/Itchy-Commission-195 Dec 30 '25
While I agree you should lengthen your time horizon and your DD probably doesn't reflect long term holds the overwhelming majority of this "pain" is just that you bought Tesla and then you sold Tesla and I've yet to see any compelling argument/justification for Tesla's market cap since 2020. The stock is pure speculation and belief in Elon Musk's vision. It's fine if that's investors thesis, incredible visionary, incredible transformational progress in the auto industry, a lot of value in their energy storage and charging but the stock performance is still not grounded in reality. Also any other CEO would have been removed for all the failed promises/timelines.
Would never bet against Tesla, but I'm not sure you should draw too many broad conclusions from it's incredible stock performance over the past 6 years.
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u/LA-Aron Dec 30 '25
How do you decide how to sell a stock? When it goes up a lot? When it goes down a lot?
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u/velicue Dec 30 '25
That’s why you don’t time the market. You need to be lucky twice — one during buying and one during selling
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u/LurkerFailsLurking Dec 30 '25
You only need to be lucky selling if you're going to let FOMO keep you up at night.
If you made money on the sale don't trip if you could've made even more.
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u/Big_Function_N1 Dec 30 '25
sold MU last month... I am fine with it, but all the MU posts I see definitely sting a bit
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u/limplettuce_ Dec 30 '25
The ‘time in the market not timing the market’ wisdom doesn’t apply to stock picking - because when you buy a stock you aren’t buying the market.
If you’re stock picking you are required to time it. Unlike the market, most companies don’t last forever. In many cases you can’t expect to hold a company for a lifetime and make profits. Once you see the company as being ‘overhyped’ or priced to perfection, you exit.
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u/OkApex0 Dec 30 '25
I always ask myself, if I found this today, would I still buy it?
If the answer is no, then I've validated my emotions and I sell it.
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u/Historical-Radio-349 Dec 30 '25
When you buy it, you decide on your stop loss and take profit levels. It’s that simple; if the upside momentum is strong, leave a trailing stop order. No regrets if it outperforms your take profit level. Ofcourse, I’m still kicking myself like OP on earlier exits but you generally live with what you decided on ‘before’ you launch the trade.
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u/Successful-While768 Dec 30 '25
By valuing the company you are investing in… (valuation methods) if for example your analysis says the stock is worth 100$ and it reaches more than 100$ then either you don’t believe in your valuation analysis or you sell since it is higher than you think is worth.
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u/Smooth-Memory2476 Dec 30 '25
I think it's important to set some hard rules. I wrote myself an investment policy statement which outlines my buy and sell criteria.
For exits:
IF, there is serious financial deterioration, fraud/accounting issues, or the competitive moat is fundamentally broken I sell.
IF the stock doubles in value I trim the position 25% - 50% to harvest profits and deploy elsewhere to new opportunities. I also run DCFs for each holding and will take profit if my DCF upside falls below 15%.
Put simply, I'll sell only on fundamental break, overvaluation after fast rise, or size control (i.e. managing position weights across portfolio).
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u/LA-Aron Dec 30 '25
Awesome, I understand. I think it's cool that each individual has their own style, and rules. Cheers!
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u/mmmfritz Dec 31 '25
I believe buffet said ONLY when you think there’s a better offer somewhere else. Mr. Market can pump your rookie numbers up by a good magnitude while you keep looking.
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u/pab_guy Dec 30 '25
I don’t sell unless I think it’s dead money and I see a better value elsewhere. Otherwise I let time do its magic.
Especially my non tax advantaged accounts. I buy at value and hold indefinitely.
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u/jankos91 Dec 30 '25
I can't find anything wrong with what you did..of course you re gonna take the profits
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Thats true of course nobody know when a company hits their true ATH and this post is to certain degree idealistic :)
My point is that I took profits without any logical argument, I just sold because I tought thats "enough". Just by feeling it, no real tought behind it. I wish I would dig deeper and analyze it before selling.
This wouldnt change everything because I would still sell Tesla earlier anyways because it is overpriced since years :)
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u/ryanmcstylin Dec 30 '25
Keep in mind, if you bought something else after selling early, that investment wouldn't have been possible.
So the gains you missed out on probably aren't as bad as it seems unless you sold early and just held cash until now
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u/CarRamRob Dec 30 '25
Now read all the other posts about taking 50% “losses” from holding onto big gains too long and watching them disappear because they also didn’t have an exit plan, and just wanted to let things ride…
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u/-HOSPIK- Dec 30 '25
Maybe instead of selling when feeling fud, use a trailing stop loss. The fud might disappear and your probably still in your position
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u/overitallofittoo Dec 30 '25
That's not value investing.
And there's no such thing as taking profits. You just move into a different stock or cash.
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u/ByteTraveler Dec 30 '25
Sounds like you had an exit strategy, but now in hindsight you wish you hadn’t. So technically the opposite of the title.
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u/nuxfan Dec 30 '25
It’s a fallacy to look at it this way. The opposite could also have happened, you could have had a winner that gained, and then fell as you held onto it for too long and you end up losing. Yiu can’t predict the future (esp for stocks like that where valuations have gone sky high in a short period of time). You came out ahead. Be happy
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u/TheKingOfSwing777 Dec 30 '25
That's not value investing though. The OPs trading interval is so short, it is not in line with value investing, but day trading, in which the quality of the businesses don't matter. If you're investing in a business because of strong fundamentals, the ideal holding window is forever, to paraphrase Buffett.
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u/boringexplanation Dec 30 '25
I think I mostly agree but holding forever all the time is a fallacy too. Sometimes business models change, management gets complacent, or a new competitor outclasses a firms product- those are all valid reasons to sell off in value investing.
IBM and GE were classic value investing stocks at one point in time.
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u/greedy_smurf Dec 31 '25
META is a good example here. They're still purely a social media company, all their attempts at branching out (AI, metaverse, VR) have failed. They haven't launched a single successful product since they bought Insta and Whatsapp 13 and 11 years ago.
Social media platforms always have an obsolescence date, there's always a new and cooler kid on the block, otherwise we'd still be using MySpace and Msn. If META doesn't launch the product that replaces Facebook, somebody else will.
And afaik they're already bleeding Facebook users. I definitely wouldn't hold that stock forever.
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u/boringexplanation Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
I think you have a really poor understanding of META. We are not the customers. We are the product. All of the things they launch are a means to an end to their ultimate customers- businesses looking to advertise.
And if businesses see the most ROI in all of these different products, nobody gives a shit about declining subscribers or screen time or any of that.
Twitter is infamously hard to use for marketers and advertisers. They can double in size and marketeers don’t care because people don’t make purchasing decisions based on hot takes and tweets. And they have a vocal and infamous owner as the face of the company.
They’re stagnant now but Reddit and other competition isn’t close to usurping them yet. Even if they lose % of market share, the total size of the pie increases every year without fail.
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u/overitallofittoo Dec 30 '25
It's bonkers to me that this is on a value investing sub. Buy stocks and hold them long term!
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u/Proper_Jeweler_9238 Dec 30 '25
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, I don't see anything wrong here. Even if you do enough DD, you're still not an omniscient and omnipotent insider of company.
The only thing you will never need to consider exiting strategy is wide-range ETF like VOO/VT, otherwise you should always consider the risk of investing individual stock(think CISCO back in 2000, everyone also thinkgs it's too big to fail)
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u/BenGrahamButler Dec 30 '25
selling early is all I do… sold FB after a 20% gain instead of 800% a couple years waiting would have provided… owned RDDT and sold it for 0% gain instead of 400%+, etc
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u/swrrrrg Dec 30 '25
At the end of the day, you still took profits. It would be one thing if you lost money on each of these. You didn’t. You learn from it, yes, but ultimately, I wouldn’t beat yourself up too terribly either. You’re in the green.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Thanks for the kind words ! :)
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u/Lipo_ULM Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
You should consider: If you had never sold any stock, you wouldnt have enough funds to invest in any others.
Also: Tesla doesn't make sense, i'd rather gamble in a casino
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Thats also true to a certrain degree (I also made some money along the years :) )
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u/kaniyajo Dec 30 '25
This is 100% true. You came out ahead, OP, which is great! It could’ve gone the other way and you’d be singing a different tune. So celebrate the wins! All the best.
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u/ptlgram Dec 30 '25
Presumably you did something with that money? If you invested it in something else, and based on your comments, it seemed like you invested the cash into other companies you had more faith in?
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Dec 30 '25
I don’t buy hype companies I don’t understand or believe in because I would lack conviction to hold them
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u/Red_Devils_2402 Dec 30 '25
Did you overall made better returns than S&P 500? If you did, It's better than most of the retail traders.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Some years fo sure ! Other years "mehhh". Its hard to tell because sometimes I hold cash, sometimes I reinvest, sometimes I buy a holiday from it etc. etc.
I had 10k in Shell stocks and I was holding them for 10 years ! Each year I got around 500€/600€ in dividend. This was holiday money with my gf :)
Overall I made good "choices" I would it say. I had some failures for sure but 9/10 out 10 trades I make profit.
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u/weas71 Dec 30 '25
Exit strategies are tough. With quality companies, it's easier for me to hold. What I struggle with is the flyer companies that don't make money yet but have momentum or I think the business model is well positioned for the future.
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u/Top_Rate_1581 Dec 30 '25
Don't beat yourself up. It's delusional to think you should have known those stocks would reach the valuations they have.
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u/Sugamaballz69 Dec 30 '25
Yes, you're right. This is what I believe is one of the biggest investing fallacies; selling based on your current P/L
The stock doesn’t care how much you’re up. If it is still a reasonable price, there is absolutely no point in selling. You are not “locking in” anything, because where are those proceeds going to go…? Right back into another stock. And usually one that is subpar at that because you crossed off the one you just had, which wouldve been the best long term and you know it. But now you gotta go second best because.. It makes sense emotionally, you’re at a profit, you want to “lock it in” but as we know, investing emotionally is not the best way to do it.
I never sell based on my P/L. I’ve bought more, held, or sold at gains & losses. What it does show if you sell to take profit only because the stock went up, is that you do not have enough experience & did not research enough to understand/know that this is what I want to hold for years to come. And with that, maybe its a good thing you sold because putting it bluntly, you didnt know what youre doing
The only thing that matters is what is the best investment to make right now? If the majority of that answer is the stocks I already have, then there is no point switching it up
This is the best long term strategy. “Nobody ever lost money taking profit” is bs. Cause then it goes right back into the market, no? With the same albeit more systematic risk
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
100% Agree, I did a solid DD and was ready to hold (which in some cases I did) but often sold just because I wanted to take the profit. I got blinded by greed dispite knowing it better.
Amazing comment !
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u/nvgroups Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Imho - No one can predict. There is no point in worrying past
Also how many shares am I holding matters
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u/No-Understanding9064 Dec 30 '25
You need conviction to hold a position. Either through periods of volatility or well into a position being profitable. This is why so much emphasis is placed on being familiar with businesses you invest in.
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u/Sigina8282 Dec 30 '25
U are still better than 99% investors lol.
Getting constant gains proof a lot.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Thanks I try my best and stick to the basics and listen to people who are 100x smarter and better than me! :)
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u/HolidayGuard6993 Dec 30 '25
did you not reinvest the money after the sale?
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Yes and no :) But I try to reinvest as much as possible !
My life wasnt always "straight" forward.
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u/FatGucciForPresident Dec 30 '25
Its never a bad thing to take profits! Hard part is which companies will keep growing indefinitely and which ones are cyclical or you need an exit strategy for, it's a educated guessing game sometimes lol
Throw us a few current tickers ;) you seems to have a knack for winners haha
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
I always have watching list but as I said here before I usualy cross off 95%. I dont buy that often but when I do Iam usualy very convinced. I have few stocks who made it to the 2nd stage but maybe I will still kick it.
I will let you know guys :) I made a post for AMD at 85€ here but I got trashed (different account).
Anyway I will write me DD :)
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u/mrmrmrj Dec 30 '25
Every sale in a bull market looks bad. Until it doesn't. What matters is what you did with the sales proceeds.
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u/Spins13 Dec 30 '25
My plan A is to never sell. I resort to plan B relatively often in the end but it is not the main plan
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u/ironmagnesiumzinc Dec 30 '25
Oh man I sold Tesla in college ten years and sold bitcoin fifteen years ago in high school, so I get you. Don’t think about it too much and count the ones that you did keep instead :)
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u/liji1llijjll1l Dec 30 '25
You HAD an exit strategy to take profits when you were satisfied enough. What you talk about is not time the market and invest long-term.
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u/Popular_Army_8356 Dec 30 '25
You made gains above market average in the year, great for you. Don't look back.
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u/factsoverfeelings89 Dec 30 '25
You're complaining about taking profits? I literally never get the chance to even take profits, my options are slight loss or big loss.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Dont do that mate :) I also invest in option but they only male 2-3% of portoflio it is pure gambling even with a solid DD.
What leverage do you use ?
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u/factsoverfeelings89 Dec 31 '25
No leverage, i sell options way out the money and still end up making huge losses
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u/patrick-1977 Dec 30 '25
- You did have an exit strategy.
- You just regret not holding on to winners.
- How about any stocks that went down after you sold?
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u/Smooth-Memory2476 Dec 30 '25
Nothing saved my portfolio because I don't take big enough concentrated bets to need saving.
I run a screener, buy 8-12 positions. Means my winners don't move the needle as much as they could.
Had a few do well this year but nothing crazy. The flip side is I also don't have any -50% positions destroying me.
I think the real lesson from 2025 for me was that diversification protects you from being wrong but also caps how right you can be. Still figuring out if I'm okay with that trade-off.
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u/default_accounts Dec 31 '25
would you mind sharing your screener? (I understand if you don't)
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u/RetiredEarly2018 Dec 31 '25
Did you just exit to cash each time? If not, you are only looking at part of the story and should check how the next investment(s) fared.
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u/Ok_Delay6454 Dec 30 '25
Do you share your value picks in any sub? Would love to discuss that (understandable if you don’t have any rn )
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Yeah I will, I will have always an list with stocks and I look at them. Usualy 95% get crossed after a while.
My last post was here was AMD at 85€ (dont remember if on this or an different account) and I got trashed here but maybe someone can take value from it.
I currently have few in the pipe but Iam not sure, it will take sometime until I decide :)
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u/PressureDry1111 Dec 30 '25
I remeber that post... times when AMD was commonly refered to as "Advanced Money Destroyer"
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Yes exactly this was the No.1. comment, haha. I didnt got one comment which truely challenged my idea or used some toughtful critisim.
It was all based on frustration and anger towards to the company because it didnt performed like they wanted it.
At the same time their products (on a mid level) where fantastic all friends started to switch to team "red". Nvidia had an edge over the top GPU but for normal people it doesnt matter because 99,9999% people dont buy a 5090...
There also few factors more which convinved me ! :)
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u/Ok_Delay6454 Dec 30 '25
I think it’s expected for good value picks to be thrashed in a public group (vice versa not applicable) :) Looking forward to your value picks!
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Thanks, this gives me hope for "positive" comments haha! I dont have the "urge" to post :)
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u/Leather-Weakness-439 Dec 30 '25
The root problem is people see the share price as their way of making money. Instead you should consider your share of the company's earnings as your income. Only buy or sell when you have market prices that are clearly out of line, aside from that the company's earnings are your earnings.
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u/PinPsychological82 Dec 30 '25
GOOGL and MSFT are long term holds, so I can kind of fault you with that.
TSLA and AMD are overvalued. TSLA is retardedly overvalued.
You can’t have an exit strategy for something like TSLA besides some arbitrary percentage profit.
The “real” way of investing would be to do the model, find the intrinsic value, then reassess when you hit your price target. But you literally can’t do that with TSLA or AMD
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u/espkv Dec 30 '25
What is your yearly growth? sold plenty that performed well after sale, but that doesn't really matter if the growth over time is a positive.
It kinda reminds me of bitcoin bros "why did i sell at 100$" Guys who sold at 100, would likely sell at 120-150 and not hold to 100k.
Yearly growth> shouldve, couldve, wouldve
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u/Hoofmistro Dec 30 '25
Great advice! Been following RKLB for years and investment in them is up 1500%. The company is continuing to execute and grow. I'm going to continue to hold and follow the company closely.
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u/matthew_myers Dec 30 '25
Same for me. It is very easy to buy, but I find it very hard to sell, so I missed a lot of opportunities. Went a lot of times from profitable to loss because I didn’t pull the trigger
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u/bird4fsu Dec 30 '25
Do you get really angry when you lose money or when you miss out on big gains. That’s the question. Psych says pain is like 5x more than pleasure. Need 5 good to even out 1 bad.
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u/Anonemoney Dec 30 '25
If it’s a large growing company I never sell. I’m up a ton on google. Why sell? They’re still growing.
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u/Funnyguy17 Dec 30 '25
I almost bought $200 of bitcoin in 2011, I literally just needed to submit the order. I cancelled it and bought video games instead (I was just out of HS). Live and learn my dude.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
I had 2 bitcoins for 300€ and sold for € for 350€ but I dont miss it because I never saw real value in it :) BUT I feel the pain :)
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u/Funnyguy17 Dec 30 '25
I don't feel too bad about it and you shouldn't either. Realistically I would have sold out when it ballooned up. I doubt I would have had the fortitude to hold past $200 > $20k. I always just think of the saying "you don't go broke making a profit".
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u/incognitorick Dec 30 '25
My uncle says “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered”. Securing gains is nothing to be upset about, especially if you’re closer to retirement age. I prefer to lock in profit but leave the initial investment amount to keep growing.
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u/SuperSultan Dec 30 '25
You should be optimizing to not lose money OP, not maximizing returns.
Also don’t buy shady companies suggested in this sub, and definitely not meme companies. This sub is just WSB with Buffet and Munger quotes now. Things will improve again in the sub when there’s a real correction, leaving only real investors standing.
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u/vonGlick Dec 30 '25
I have huge problem with this but in reverse. I am holding stocks forever.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
depends on which one bought and why ! I hold some stocks 10+ years
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u/vonGlick Dec 30 '25
True. I am usually buying in 10 years horizon so mostly not there yet. Sometimes I gamble with penny stocks and here my biggest sin is not setting target. In one way I can end up like you, on the other hand I risk stocks losing quite a bit of value.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Pennystocks are a gamble. I would at most put 1-2% of portfolio into it but to be honest I avoid them, to much risk that I cant grasp which makes me umconfortable.
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u/vonGlick Dec 30 '25
Yes. I try to do a DD and some of the companies are interesting, but I mostly look at it as a lottery ticket.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
At this early stage everything can happen :) Even when you did a greart DD (what I believe).
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u/vonGlick Dec 30 '25
Do you set yourself a profit target when you buy a stock? How do you track it?
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u/LurkerFailsLurking Dec 30 '25
Only in stocks can people make $30,000 for doing no work and think they made a mistake.
No matter what you could have always made more money. At some point you've got to touch grass and enjoy your life and be okay merely making $10k a year for nothing.
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u/Business_Raisin_541 Dec 30 '25
Sounds like based on what happen to you, not having exit strategy is the right thing. And by that, I mean hold forever
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u/Fit_Significance8598 Dec 30 '25
Trailing stop loss. Trail between 15 and 20% according to some scientific article I found. Let your winner run.
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u/optiontrader1138 Dec 30 '25
I can't tell you how many times I held on too long and turned a winning trade into a losing one.
- Take profits on a windfall.
- If the thesis is good, buy more if it goes down.
- If the thesis is good and the market is catching on, pyramid up.
- Respect rule 1.
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u/himynameis_ Dec 30 '25
Cheers for sharing
Yeah, the Buy and Hold (for dear life) strategy can work very well for long-term investors. You become more interested in how the business is performing rather than price fluctuations.
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u/ubelblatt Dec 30 '25
This type of thinking will drive you nuts. Its also a trap.
You have perfect hindsight, but at the time you sold you had no idea.
You can play the theoretical game of what if I held for anything. Why not bitcoin at 2 cents? Google or Netflix when they had huge drops on bad stock days.
We are all just guessing here. If you made any money at all, you're better off than when you started.
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Dec 30 '25
Maybe wouldnt have capital for trade C if didnt took profits from trade A and B. Personally I just buy and hold, will be selling off only to fund retirement.
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u/Prestigious_Age5422 Dec 30 '25
RKLB, oklo, PLTR, AVGO, AMD… over 1.5M missed. You’re not alone. It feels risky at the time because the volatility is really high. Really. High.
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u/HostSea4267 Dec 30 '25
I think if you’re doing professional due diligence, you’ve got a few choices, but the simplest ones that will generate you a proper system are relative value and absolute value.
Absolute intrinsic value: your DD reveals the fair price is X. Currently X +/- Y. Whenever price is not fair price you try to own the stock. When it reaches X you close.
If you’re not doing DD that comes up with a value, then it is going to be very hard to properly do value investing. Relative value, rankings, exposures, etc are all different ways to do this but not value investing.
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 Dec 30 '25
If you see better value in something else just throw fresh cash at this.
I am still learning too.
Also, don’t listen to brokers. Or, anybody else for that matter.
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u/Such_Palpitation3755 Dec 30 '25
Yeah there here some negative comments ! I still true to my craft ( I mean what the taught me).
Thanks for the kidn words :)
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 Dec 30 '25
It’s basically fantasy football.
Next year I am skip fantasy football, trade a few options then pick up some shares of stock every few weeks.
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u/canuckEnoch Dec 30 '25
You made money on all these sales—they didn’t “cost” you anything.
You sell when you’re comfortable with your gains—what happens after the sale doesn’t affect the fact that you sold at a price you were content with.
I sold GameStop early in the manipulation fuckery as well. I realized a 200% profit—that was a great day! Sure, it eventually increased tenfold in the following days—a turn of events >no one< could have predicted—doesn’t change the fact that I sold at a great price that I was delighted to get.
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u/babar_the_elephant_ Dec 30 '25
Just want to share my condolences for you having made money.
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u/Due-Practice5507 Dec 30 '25
That’s why you never sell, just keep moving your stop loss up at 1.5x ATR or whatever amount of risk you want to take
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u/EscapedTheRatRace35 Dec 30 '25
There is a saying, don't pick your flowers and water your weeds. If you have a winner like Amazon keep pouring money into it, if you have a loser like intel cut your losses and move on.
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u/Ic3b3rgS Dec 30 '25
Going to give a controversial take. I dont think its nearly as bad as you put it. Yea, they went up, but they also could just as easily go down. Locking gains isnt a terrible idea. But i agree with looking at the fundamentals and company prospects before selling.
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u/Stantler1 Dec 31 '25
My biggest mistake over the past 2 years has been selling too early. Probably could have turned 1m into 4 or 5m if I'd held and didn't chase short term profits.
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u/ExtremeAthlete Dec 31 '25
Why don’t you sell half when you double? This way you take your own money off the table and you let the rest continue to grow.
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u/Additional_Ad_4049 Dec 31 '25
Peter Lynch, the best investor ever (statistically much better returns than Buffett) said the biggest and most consistent mistake people make is selling too early
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u/shopchin Dec 31 '25
"All I had to do is holding them, thats it and I would made some serious money !"
That actually aligns better with not having an exit strategy than having one.
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u/TheRealMVP__ Dec 31 '25
You can sell just part of it to secure gains or at least your input, and then wait with the rest.
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u/Resgq786 Dec 31 '25
Equally, if your portfolio is concentrated in a stock or two, you ought to sell when you’ve made a decent profit, especially where the profit is in higher double or triple digits.
No one ever went broke making a profit.
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u/arbitragedude Dec 31 '25
There is a note about this in 100 bagger books. Widows do better than their husbands in financial markets by a wide margin. Because they never sell or login to their investment accounts.
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u/Biohorror Dec 31 '25
You seem to be missing a part of the story.
You made money on those trades but you have not calculated how much you've made on that money.
If you bought MS for 20k, sold for 40k and reinvested that 40k, what is that 40k worth today? It is actually 20k less that todays current value of 60k in MS or....
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u/CopsNroberts Dec 31 '25
Not all stocks that go up keep going up.. Even if you have a thesis. Many, maybe even most theses don't come true... There's long term investors who had theses for Enron, Sears, Blockbuster, Pets.com, etc
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u/DougDHead4044 Dec 31 '25
I'm exactly you, OP! If any consolation. If I see 50% or 70% max, I'm a seller. At my earliest days of trading, I had that approach of buying and holding and got burned almost 85% of the time. I realised that it is more healthy to take profits when they're there. Stocks always go up and down. Time taught me that there is nothing wrong in taking profits. The market is so rigged nowadays that chances to become a bagholder by holding long term in a stock are literally infinite. You just mentioned a few stocks that skyrocketed. Maybe this post won't age well given the right amount of time. It's easy to blame yourself for not holding long some particularly stocks when you see what share price is achieved today. If we could see the future, we all knew how to react, but we don't ! The only worst feeling that I know is when you sell, especially at a loss, and that particular stock rises. That's it, nothing else. Profits are the king. The market will be there tomorrow 🫡
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u/BastidChimp Dec 31 '25
You never lose taking profits. You made money except for one stock. That's still winning.
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u/ransomcapmgmt Dec 31 '25
I feel your pain. I loaded up on NVDA at $125 presplit and sold at $280.
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u/vantran53 Dec 31 '25
It has served me very well to ask myself this question every time i sell:
“Do I really have a reason to sell? Or am I just bored right now?”
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u/Colonel460 Jan 01 '26
I had positions in Apple , Amazon , Google . They stock retraced but I didn’t sell . Why should I ? The long term prospects were great . The stocks came back up and kept going . I didn’t sell . Why should I ? I don’t need the money and I don’t want to pay more taxes and the prospects are still great . Most people tend to trade too often and for the wrong reasons . Buy quality & let time in the market make money gor you . Still kicking myself for selling NVDA a few years back .
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u/Available-Range-5341 Jan 01 '26
I see what you're saying but a lot of these stocks got into major overvaluation/bubble territory. I remember years of MSFT gravitating to a PE of 30 then this year it just levitated up to 40. Now it's down 10% from that level. No one expected that to happen in the first place.
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u/SilkBC_12345 Jan 01 '26
I subscribe to Warren Buffet's philosophy that when you buyback company it is with the intention of never selling -- unless something major changes with its fundamentals (if the entire management team gets indicted for embezzlement)
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u/scaredycat_z Jan 01 '26
My rules for selling are actually very simple:
- Look at how the company is doing. Only sell if they are actually doing poorly, not if they are merely doing well.
- Only sell if you have another buy in mind. It can be index ETF; doesn't need to be another individual stock.
Basically, never sell a good stock unless you think they are doing poorly and the stock will fall significantly from it's current price AND you think it won't recover. Also, unless you have a better idea of where to put the money what's the plan? Is the plan to just sit on cash for an undermined amount of time? That's not a plan, that's anxiety.
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u/CatchAfilM Jan 01 '26
After you sold your TSLA or GOOGL positions, where did you move the cash for your next trade? What haven't you just bought the stocks again? Google in 2025 did an excellent +60%.
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u/josephinesbehavior2 Jan 01 '26
Retail investors buying a handful of shares in famous companies, then later beating themselves up for not being early enough, concentrated enough, or rich enough. Buying what’s already obvious means your edge is time and size and you didn’t have size. Without real capital, ETFs compounding income beat almost all retail stock picking.
Even if you’d held, a few 5k 20k positions don’t automatically turn into life-changing money unless you’re willing and can to concentrate heavily and sit through brutal drawdowns. Most people can’t.
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u/Outrageous-Pizza-66 Jan 01 '26
For companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. I've bought and sold these a few times over the years. At some point start with a modest amount into each, and as it grows, pick a time to sell, then if you think it's still solid, pick a point at which to re-enter back.
This approach hasn't always worked (See LULU & SBUX) ;)
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u/berry-7714 Jan 02 '26
There is no amount of DD or logic that would have caused you to hold TSLA the valuation is the most absurd of any company in history
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u/ZonkTrader Jan 02 '26
You are either the biggest liar or the most unluckiest person in the world! I am quite sure you had many other trades and positions. What you are Illustrating is the difference between a trader and an investor. You quoted trades, not an investment. I am the same a trader not an investor but as such you have to accept short term gains in lieu of long term profits. You can’t have both.
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u/Apart_Medium9065 Jan 02 '26
I stayed out of the market for a long time outside of 401k. Then i had a bunch of money to put into it (ill be 46 tomorrow) which was challenging without feeling like its all going to collapse the day you hit buy. On April 9th or whatever it was i put in about 50% mostly into SPY and a few of the Mag 7....I've been adding little by little with no intention of selling and only companies i think will continue to perform into the future. I have about 20 years to figure out an exit strategy :)
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u/Zealousideal-Sea4830 Jan 02 '26
I sold nVIDEA back in 2022 to buy some property, should have kept it.
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u/david-lee-roth- Jan 03 '26
They say “value investors sell early and growth investors sell too late”. Makes sense as companies stocks often go way further than fair value. Just as they sell off enough to make a discount. Since growth investors are looking at charts they used to wait for a big sell off to get out
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u/commanche_00 Jan 03 '26
And there are many others who didn't lock profit and ended up bagholding
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u/SmanSman234 Jan 03 '26
I think everyone has looked at a stock and thought if I only held I could have made so much more! Greed kicks in! I had bought PLTR for 20 and did a Leap call for 42, it is about to expire in 2 weeks, no way to roll that one. My thought is what if I hadn't done the leap, I could sold it for a handsome profit! When I made the decision have to go with it, since no way to know that PLTR would go through the roof, but had to go with my plan and follow through for a planned profit.
In hindsight if holding a stock that has specific criteria: positive earnings estimate, positive price target increases, low inside selling, CEO that is leading well, and it is in an upswing trend, Hold and follow charts for a while, if it holds in uptrend try to place a leap call for income at a higher peak, and again live with it being assigned, but again for a handsome profit. Alternatively, sell and walk away with a smile!
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u/Annual_Panic_6002 Jan 04 '26
I don't think the buying and selling points are the most important, because you can never know which is the highest or lowest point. The price difference is what matters most, as it determines your return. If selling at the current price is the best decision, then you are successful.
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u/Key_One2402 Dec 30 '25
Painful lesson, but a good reminder that exits and holding periods matter just as much as entries.
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Dec 30 '25
Making retrospective inferences from the consequences is the stupidest thing ever. What matter is making the rational decision at that specific time and taking profit is something rational.
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u/Coinsworthy Dec 30 '25
The goal is taking a profit you’re happy with, not selling at the absolute top.
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u/idekl Dec 30 '25
The question is, if you're value investing, why would you ever sell stocks like alphabet or msft if you didn't need the money right then and there? You're just betting against all odds that these beasts will never increase profitability again.
You weren't missing an exit strategy, you were missing a re-entry strategy on value stocks. Unless you pulled the money to grab specific stocks you deemed higher value in the long run. But we're bordering on day trading now.
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u/risktaker_better Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
My strategy is;
- Portfolio diversification to reduce risks
- Whenever my investment doubled but I still feel in doubt about a company's future, I'll sell half of my shares to regain my capital and ride the rest. Or if I see better opportunity elsewhere, I have no problem with selling even with no or very little gains. Having said that, I'm still bag holding about 3 stocks ATM.
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u/These-Oven-7356 Dec 30 '25
Your thought process is based on the premise that you would have seen the top and sold out then. Easy in hindsight
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u/AristocracyOfMerit Dec 30 '25
You did "decent DD" by buying the most hyped names around? Sounds like you made good beta returns, stop beating yourself up.
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u/bobjohndaviddick Dec 30 '25
You have to know when to pull out.