An old horseman years ago told me that training a good horse was...

An old horseman years ago told me that training a good horse was like balancing a broomstick between your fingers. You may need to make big adjustments at the beginning, but then your movements should become more and more subtle as you get closer to the right balance of understanding between you. As an investor, not a trader, I find this an apt analogy to the business of investing also. There are times when a wind blows by and puts your delicately balanced broomstick back in need of recapturing, but experience helps you sort it out quicker each time. My investment method has gradually been been honed to holding about 22 to 23 stocks ( many academic papers have been written on what is the optimum number to hold to maximize profit and minimize risk and it seems the general agreement is between 15and 25 ). IRI has been on my watch list for some time, and I have recently found that 2 of my 23 are about to be taken out or over- SRX and APO. As a result I had need of replacing at least one of these, and the recent share slump of IRI has brought an overpriced good stock back into a sensible accumulate zone. I have been quite enthusiastically doing so recently. I feel that there may be some short term disappointment with next weeks results, but I have faith as a long termer, that this would only be an opportunity to bring me up to a sensible quota of this excellently run company.