If the job has been correctly done when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell is almost never. — Phil Fisher

If the job has been correctly done when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell is almost never.

Author: Phil Fisher

Insight: Most people think of stocks like rental apartments—you buy, hold for a few years, then sell when the price goes up. But Fisher is pointing at something different: if you've actually done your homework and picked a genuinely good company, why would you ever leave? The math works better if you stay. You avoid taxes on the sale, you skip trading fees, and you keep compounding your gains year after year while others are jumping between positions. The tricky part is that this assumes you picked well in the first place. We're not talking about buying randomly and hoping. Fisher means you've studied the business, understand why it works, and believe it will keep working for decades. That's rare, which is why he says selling is "almost never" rather than "never"—you might occasionally need cash or realize you were actually wrong about something. But if you nailed it, you should feel almost guilty about selling. This cuts against our impatient instincts. We're trained to think improvement means constant action, constant switching. The truth here is quieter: sometimes the smartest move is to do nothing and let compound interest do the work. That patience is worth more than most people realize.