Having tried variants of all three you can take it from me: taking the loss but sticking to your disciplines is your best lifestyle choice. Here's what else I'm eyeballing:
 

• Running through other names in my portfolio we've discussed recently: Wal-Mart (WMT) is acting well today but is truly on my Naughty List. It's not the stock levels concerning me; it's the last of execution. WMT makes its bacon by being the best operator extant. Its performance of late suggests a certain amount of back sliding.
  
  
• Bank of America (BAC) continues to trade soft on the double whammy of the media's relentless reporting on Merrill Lynch executives leaving the combined firms. Here's the thing about paying billions of dollars for an asset: You can do whatever you want with it.
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  CEO Ken Lewis is 61 years old. He didn't save Merrill from going to zero because he was looking for a successor in the form of John Thain or anyone else. I said it last week and it still holds: Ken Lewis has put together more mergers, more effectively, than any other banker still standing. Including Jamie Dimon.
  
  If Bank of America was based in NYC, the media would have their lips firmly affixed to Lewis' backside 24/7. As it is, we've just got a bunch of folks whining about the redneck pruning the deadwood. If Merrill didn't want to sell, it shouldn't have run itself into the ground.
  
  
• The most exciting news out of the Detroit auto show? The third generation Prius from Toyota (TM)! The car gets 50 miles per gallon, and can run on shredded shares of General Motors (GM) in an emergency.
  
  
• I like Senator Chuck Schumer. Seems like a smart enough guy, and comes on my show every once in a while. But when he or anyone else in Washington, DC claims that Citigroup (C) hasn't benefited from the TARP bailout -- and that said bailout didn't allow Citi to engage in the government's dirty work by giving it the money and approval to end-run existing bankruptcy laws -- well, let's just say the network was right to not let me offer a few follow-ups.
  
  
• There's simply no reason to "trust" either Wall Street or DC when they're obviously colluding to change the rules as they go along. To that point, I have no idea what Citigroup will lose or make this quarter or whether or not the stock is a Buy here. So making even an educated guess on those points would require having even the foggiest idea what Citi does for a living.