Here is the link: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...x?guid={3E08BEC4-5764-4439-8EFA-05F477378C75} http://www.dealbreaker.com/index.php?page=2 Dealbreaker reports that Buffett had an 11% stake in PTR. The market value of PTR today is aroud 440 billion - meaning his stake would've been around 44 billion!! He reported on Fox that he sold 'way too early' yet made 3.5 billion on an investment of 500 million. Had he held, he would've made 44 billion!! which would have: doubled his net worth, made him the richest person in the world by a huge margin. Taking profits too earily is probably the #1 reason that prevents every trader/investor from enourmous returns. AAPL/GOOG/PTR and I can go on and on. Even on huge trend days in the ES like today how many folks took the fast and easy profits instead of holding. I sure did I made 10 points today and watched as the market moved an additional 10 points down - yet these are the few and far between days you're supposed to break the bank.
Who know's where PTR will be in 10 years - it may easily overtake Exxon withing 10 years. It has some amazing statistics: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=PTR W.B. will go to his grave regreting this trade. Just imagine if Bill Gates had cashed out at 3.5 billion. Or the Google founders.
You are looking at this through the glasses of survivorship bias. What about the cases in which one took a profit and the stock tanked afterwards. Had they held on they would have lost their ass or had there stops hit at a loss. Greed will ruin your trading. You never go broke taking a profit.
That's exactly how you go broke. Yeah if a stock is up huge base on momentum alone, or rumor alone than you sell it. But if the company is growing fast and is back by rock solid fundementals like AAPL/GOOG/PTR/MSFT( in the 80s and 90s) then you do go broke taking profits because you missed your once in a lifetime opportunity to make enourmous returns. Those kinds of returns are what makes up for all the other small losses and small profits. I doubt the cashed out of all their holdings. They may want to diversify. But if they did cash out of their entire holding - then they too will go to their graves regreting it.
avg buying price: HKD1.68 no of share: 2.348B shares avg selling price: HKD12.2 ==> profit: HKD24.7B (~USD3B) Price now: ~HKD19 So he is making HKD16B less (USD2B) No of float doesn't equal no of total share since China government holds a lot of share. The market capitalization is seriously inflated b'coz only a portion of total shares is really floated.