Whatever the merits of GXL and however much people may love...

Whatever the merits of GXL and however much people may love their pets, this has been another object lesson to me in the merits of stop losses. I bought a substantial stake in Sep 2014 and the return so far over 3 years , including dividends franking credits and the present value, is down 40% . Knowing then what I know now it's clear I should have exited by the end of October 2014, taken the 15% loss and reallocated my funds. I could always have bought back in if it looked like the trend had changed. The thought of the opportunity cost over 3 years is also quite depressing. The purpose of posting this is to make the point that, to buy and hold because the investment thesis makes sense, is fine as long as enough investors share your opinion but clearly in the case of GXL the majority do not see compelling value and it has continued to drift down. At some point, maybe even now given that today's action looks a little bit like a capitulation before a rise, they will increase in value but the question then becomes one of how quickly will it rise to its previous highs? Clearly the heyday was from early 2011 to mid-2014 when they went from 0.70c to about $10.70, only slightly longer than it took my investment from the same $10 or so to today's $5.17. I do like to spread my mistakes around... I also held Telstra all the way from $5.85 to $3.36, although I did buy them at about 2.85 in 2011. I've recently been reading some books by Daryl Guppy and have been forced to reassess my ideas about longterm investing. As far as GXL is concerned I am now treating my current depleted holding as if it was bought today, and will be implementing a stop loss along the lines suggested by Guppy. If it performs then I 'll keep it, but if not then out is goes, puppies or no puppies!