If you are an investor in a company, you cannot have an exit point unless it is on the downside. In other words, the only time you should be concerned about an exit strategy is when you are in the process of consistently evaporating equity at the hands of a particular stock. By consciously having an upside target to sell your stock you are creating an expectation that will often times not initially be met, thereby justifying selling the stock at a lower price when your disappointment turns to despondency. Eventually you watch as the stock blows past your initial exit point, going onto further gains above and beyond anything you, as an investor, expected.
This becomes especially true in a secular bull market. I started my career on the retail trading desk for Waterhouse (now TD Ameritrade) in the mid-90s. You don't know how many investors I saw sell names like AMZN and YHOO when these names went onto create absolute fortunes for investors into the 2000 top. To loosely quote Jesse Livermore, "There are lots of early bulls in a bull market, but the man who can be right and sit tight is rare."
I consistently remind myself of the lessons learned two decades ago in order to properly capitalize in this bull market.
Exit points are amateur-hour. Control your downside and allow the upside to flourish unencumbered.
