<<<How long did you own those $3 shares before they got to $15?>>>

At least 4-5 years for the first few shares I bought. My basis was anywhere from $5 down to below $2. The value was there the whole time -- it just took a long time for the market to notice it.

I felt it was worth $7-$8 or so and kept adding on dips until eventually I had maybe 22,000 shares. It was pretty humorous seeing zero volume days and down sometimes when it was already at discounted prices. I would say frustrating, but it wasn't for me. I'd use those down days to add. Some people would call me a cheerleader for the stock. I did not care. It was a high tech niche stock with negligible debt, very high barriers to entry and high insider ownership.

One of the reasons I stubbornly stayed, is that I had just finished holding YUM (they own KFC, Taco Bell, etc) for several years. I finally got impatient of it going sideways and took all my dead money out. I took a slight loss on it. Within a short time after that, YUM shot up. If only I had waited 3 more months or so!!

So this time I hung on. Then the crowd rushed in, and the stock's volume shot up sharply and the shares were easy to get rid of.

The price also greatly overshot my estimates of fair value so I fed shares into the rally gradually. I used stop losses to lock in gains. By the time the stock fell back from $18, I didn't have a lot left in my acct anymore....but it's always nice to hold a few back!

Ended up making >$100k on the stock, which I would have missed had I been impatient.

Naturally, your mileage may vary. Those are just some things that happened to me.

-web