When to sell...

Some of my stocks are doing really well at the moment - anywhere from +6% to +30% since i bought them, so the question begs: should I sell some of them? (btw: the rest are from -2.5% to -7% with an overall portfolio gain of 4%)

On one hand they could continue rising in value but on the other hand they might have reached their peek. How do you tell? Well, I don't think you can. Not for each individual stock at least, though you might be able to tell based on the sector and/or the general economic outlook.

Let's look at some of the stocks that are down to begin with: Apple, Countrywide and Starbucks. Apple has taken quite a beating without actually doing too bad...they might have been over values earlier or it's simply a result of the looming US recession what make investors think they're going to be doing worse than they have. Well they will, but they're still a solid company with sought after products so they will rebound at some point. Only question is when. I think it'll take some time so if they make it up to the price I initially paid, I might sell them...if not...I could be tempted to hang on to them unless I feel I need to money for another, more interesting investment. Countrywide was a gamble, and I should probably just cut my losses...these guys are in serious trouble and I think it'll take a while before they really recover. Starbucks have had a bit of a revival the last few days on some good news, but I doubt that they are very recession-proof (if anything is) and if I were short of cash, the first place I would cut down was on my coffee...might be different for other people but it's more of a luxury than a necessity so they'll be sold of too.

Among those who do well, I have two pharmaceutical companies (ISV and ISPH) who could both be very profitable in 1-3 years. I have Gold iShares (IAU) who's profiting from the rise in gold prices, my goldmine (GSPG) and finally Boeing. With the expectations of gold going beyond $1000 and perhaps even all the way to $2000, it wouldn't make sense to sell the iShares. Same goes for GSPG as they might start mining gold and silver soon. The pharma-stocks isn't a huge investment and I'm beginning to be more interested in small-cap/penny stocks, so they represent the sort of stocks I'm looking for and therefore not candidates for being sold (yet - though I should probably set a price target for them). The odd one out is Boeing (BA). They represent roughly a fifth of my entire portfolio and I stand to gain around $30 at the moment (not much, but given my portfolio, a nice return :) I'm tempted to sell them now, before they dip again but I have a feeling they'll make it to above $87 before they start loosing momentum, so I've set a stop marker at $87.50, hoping I'm right...

I'll have another look at the stocks I want to get rid of and decide a price point at which to sell. I'd rather put the money into other more interesting investments than having a few bad (and potentially really bad) stocks on hand.