Portfolio Rule Seven says:

Rebalance the portfolio whenever a stock gets more than 20% away from its target weight. Run a largely equal-weighted portfolio because it is genuinely difficult to tell what idea is the best. Keep about 30-40 names for diversification purposes.

Rarely is a stock a better idea after it has risen 20%, thus, sell some off in case of mean reversion.? When a stock falls 20%, it is usually a better idea, but to make sure, a review should be done to make sure that nothing has been missed.? Since instituting this rule, I have only had two bad failures over the last 13 years.? One was a painful loss on a mortgage REIT, Deerfield Triarc, and the other was Scottish Re.

But still I resist trends.? Human opinion is fickle, and most of the time, there is overreaction.? As a guard, on the downside, I review new purchases to make sure I am not catching a falling knife.

Much of it comes down to time horizons — my average holding period is three years.? If the asset has enough of a margin of safety, the management team will take action to fix the problems.? That is why I analyze management, their use of cash, and margin of safety.? A stock may seem like a lottery ticket in the short run, but in the long run it is a share in a business, so understanding that business better than most is an edge.? How big that edge is, is open to question, but it is an edge.

Another reason I resist trends is that industry pricing cycles tend to reverse every three years or so, offering opportunities to firms that possess a margin of safety in industries that are not in terminal decline, like most newspapers, bricks-and-mortar bookstores, record stores, video rental stores, etc.? (The internet changes almost everything.)

The second last reason why I resist trends is practical — experience.? Most of my best purchases have suffered some form of setback while holding them — were they bad stocks?? No, time and chance happen to all, but a good management team can bounce back.? It offers me an opportunity to add to my position.? I made a great deal of money buying fundamentally strong insurers and other companies during the crisis, sometimes with double weights.

The last reason is an odd one — the tax code.? Short-term gains are disfavored, and also cannot be used for charitable giving.

So why not take a longer view?? I can tell you what you would need to do:

• Focus on margin of safety (debt, competitive boundaries, etc.)
• Analyze how management uses free cash (acquisitions, dividends, capital investments, buybacks)
• Analyze industry pricing trends, at least implicitly.
• Look at the accounting to see if it is likely to be fair (there are a few tests)
• Look for cheap valuations, which may have ugly charts.? People have to be at least a little scared.

That takes effort.? I am by no means the best at it, but I do reasonably well.? I avoid large losses without having any sort of automatic “sell trigger.”? Most of my initial losses bounce back, to a high degree.

With that, I wish you well.? Have a great Thanksgiving!