They Sold Stocks, And Lived to Regret It

July 29 -- Every time Cynthia Altieri thinks about getting back into the stock market again, she recalls her experience with Amazon.com.

Altieri, a 39-year-old massage therapist who lives in Astoria, Ore., bought 10,000 shares of Amazon.com in July 2002, when the company's shares were trading at more than $16. After seeing the stock drop into the $12 range a few days later, Altieri got nervous and sold at $12.75, losing almost $40,000.

Now she regrets the decision, especially since Amazon.com's most recent closing price was around $42. If Altieri had hung on to the stock, she would be about $260,000 richer today.

The experience has scarred Altieri, and likely many other investors who sold shares while the markets were tanking but are now learning a hard lesson about the buy-and-hold philosophy as markets regain some of their shine. Stocks ended one of their best quarters at the end of June, when the Standard & Poor's 500 index posted its biggest quarterly gain in 4 ½ years.

Altieri, who has been investing in the stock market since 1995, tried buying some stocks in early March when the market started going up again, but got nervous and pulled out a few days later, making only $700 for her efforts.

"I'm not healing as fast as everyone else seems to be," says Altieri. "Sometimes I feel like it's only me not making money."

"I think people are always regretful," says Joe Murtagh, a certified financial planner based in Goshen, N.Y. "They run on fear and then they retreat and they say, 'I wish, if only I had.' "

Funds Flowing Into Stocks

While some market watchers are reluctant to declare the bull has returned, many investors have been eager to jump back on the investing bandwagon.

Domestic equity mutual funds have seen 19 straight weeks of inflows, with an average of $2.13 billion of new money invested a month in domestic stock funds this year, according to the latest figures from Banc of America Securities. The investment bank said domestic stock funds saw net inflows of almost $1.7 billion for the week ended July 25.