I do not consider a LT buy and a ST sell as mutually exclusive. To my mind a share may go up in the long term but have some short term weakness which may prompt a sell. More relevant for me personally is the management of risk / preserving of capital given that I want to use the money for other purposes later this year (personal reasons).
I saw Cyprus as potentially a market melt down event, triggering my sell. As it turns out the market pretty much ignored it so I did not get that call right. Since then there have been other factors which have also added to the weakness, which have allowed me to buy back some of my holding at a slight reduction (+ a bit of trading the daily movements).
To respectfully correct your post, I do not describe the issues I raise as "short term external factors". Indeed some of them are long term issues that will play out over months / years. I simply state that "its hard to know which way the stock will move in the short term. Its still a good long term buy in my book."
In short my positioning has been more about preserving capital and managing risk and investment time frames. The trade off is of course that I may miss out of some profit.
AOK Price at posting:
15.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
