Did you miss Woolworths?

I can't remember the last time The Intelligent Investor upgraded Woolworths to Buy, our second strongest positive recommendation. But that's what we did on Tuesday 9 August, when the All Ordinaries index did a decent impersonation of a bungee-jumper. It fell 5.5% to 3,829 until after lunch, then rebounded 7.0% to end up on the day.

Of course, I didn't buy any Woolies. I was too busy upgrading stocks (and I own a decent number of Metcash in any case). Our staff trading policy also prevents us from acting on upgrades for two days.

If you were waiting patiently for the upgrade, I'm betting you probably didn't manage to buy Woolworths that day either. For one thing, the stock only traded below $24 (our previously nominated upgrade price) for a few hours, so you needed to be quick off the mark. Woolworths has now re-gained almost all its lost ground.

So how can you be sure you don't miss it—or some other stock—next time?

Well, here's my advice: stop following us. If you slavishly wait for upgrades, you're probably not thinking independently enough. Of course, use The Intelligent Investor for ideas, but construct your own watch list and the price at which you'd be a buyer.

It's best not to anchor to the prices in our recommendation guides either. Whether you buy Woolworths at $24.00 or $24.50 isn't going to make much difference. What matters is that you have a list of stocks and that you determine the prices at which you're interested. If you're looking for income, for example, you might determine your prices from the yield; below $25.00 you can buy Woolworths on a forecast fully franked yield of 5%, for example.

It's also not enough to build a watch list. You must make sure you have cash available. Then you must act when the opportunity presents itself. Overcoming paralysis and pushing that buy button when the market has plunged 6% in a day isn't easy. The watch list will at least provide some discipline here.

While I didn't buy Woolworths during the August mini-crash, I did buy four other stocks. In my next Doddsville piece—a fortnight hence—I'll examine what each stock has done since purchase. It won't be a scientific analysis, but the passing of time might indicate whether it was better to jump into the maelstrom, or wait a few weeks.

Did you manage to buy Woolworths during the market downdraught? What about any other stocks? Did you learn any lessons during this period? What techniques helped you act? Or are you happy to have sat on the sidelines?

Disclosure: The author, James Greenhalgh, owns shares in Metcash, as do other staff members.