Lessons learnt so far

The past few days have been days of reflection on my current portfolio. The bear market rally is over and unrealized profits have fell quite considerably. This brings me to several lessons I have learnt and what should have been done.

1)Investing 100% of my capital at one point of time
As prices were low and relatively affordable over the past month, I had invested all of my capital. The bear market rally saw some nice returns on paper but the past week, when the rally ended and prices started to drop, I had no more capital to buy in more stocks now that prices were lower. It's not nice to feel cash strapped especially when an opportunity comes knocking.

2)Not selling all of a stock when deciding to cash in
Investing for the mid to long term as a primary objective, I also do active trading from time to time. One thing I have started to understand about myself is that I place huge satisfaction on ownership alone. It is also in those instances when I release all of a certain stock only for it to rise later when I feel like stabbing myself. Of course, it might fall and selling all at that time would be great, but I didn't like how I felt when the former happened, so I always make it a point to keep at least one lot of a certain stock at any point of time, only selling when a downward trend is imminent.

3)My serious problem of over-diversifying
Having my capital spread thin over 40 counters, I begin to realise that it is a grossly wrong strategy that I have been taking. Capital spread thin will mean that potential profits are spread way too thin and I was actually spreading my exposure to risk. WRONG...It is about time I become more discerning in my purchases and streamline the portfolio SIGNIFICANTLY.

4)The problem of micro-managing
I did not have the time to manage all the counters efficiently which resulted in less understanding and control over every single one. Again, a streamline is absolutely necessary in this case.

What I should do now..
Since the indexes have been down, I am betting on the support level of around 2100 for the market to start rising (if it ever does) before cashing out and reinventing my portfolio. I used to have this concept of a 'Winning 6' which I should get back soon hopefully. Ideally, this should be done before the market actually starts building due to stronger fundamentals rather than on sentiment.