Hi @thunderhead thanks! I'll clarify what I meant.

As I have no idea whether or for how long the down trend will continue, I've taken an initial (2%) stake today, with the intention to add more.

If the down trend continues, I'll most likely wait until positive newsflow turns it around. So in theory, if something's changed and the SP is in terminal decline (which I assign almost 0% likelihood to) then my maximum exposure is 2%. Evenutally performance data would confirm my thesis was unsound and I'd exit to preserve capital. (Probably needs more that two bad halves, however). I don't do stop losses.

That said, if it falls much further on no company-specific news and just "momentum" or "sentiment", then my conviction is high enough to probably add another 2%, and leave the final 2% until more performance data is available to back-up my thesis.

Conversely, if tomorrow marks the start of a sharp up-trend, then yay! I got my first 1/3rd of my position in at a good price, and then I'll phase in two further purchases of 2% each, provided I get in before it gets much over, say, $9.20 - $9.50.

So the timing of further increments depends on a combination of SP movement and newsflow. There is no pre-ordained schedule.

Learning from past errors of trying to time the market or going all-in just on my conviction alone, I have been more disciplined in this approach more recently.

But TBH I think $DDR is a good enough business that this might be overcomplicated, and I might more easily have just placed the full position today. However, this more incremental approach has proven to save me from bad decisions.

Hope that's clear.

(Note: while I sold parts of several positions today to make room in my SM portfolio, I did not sell down anything in RL, as I still have ample cash from exits over recent months.)

Thank you for the comprehensive response @mikebrisy lt’s about as clear as it can get for an amateur like me - lots to digest.

My quandary is the price action/technicals often lead and move ahead of the fundamentals, at least for well followed and sufficiently liquid names. So it’s a case of which is the cart, and which is the horse here. The exception is when you understand a business well and have high conviction - then you ideally want the price to drop while you accumulate, and hopefully only rise after (too easy, right?).

I will also note that it is not just DDR under pressure. Its comparable, DTL (which I also own) has also been volatile within a general downtrend since it topped out around $10.

Yeh I am an owner of both and it has been a bit of a downtrend of late.

DDRs quietest period is calendar q3 so I’m confident things will trend up when they are closer to doing full year reporting

Yes I own both DDR and DTL too and have been adding a little over the past few weeks.

I attended the DTL AGM this week and was very happy with the new Chair and the job the newish CEO and CFO are doing too. They were positive about the general market conditions moving forward and expect between 5% and 10% growth in NPAT this half.

Hopefully DDR will see some similar results although COO Vlad did suggest the next half will be stronger than the current one, when he presented a few months ago.