Win against the charging herd

Institutions have been selling AAPL shares like mad over the last six months. Fidelity's Contrafund is a prime example, along with many large hedge funds.

Danoff was hardly alone in trimming his Apple position. Some 870 institutional investors pared their Apple holdings in the most recent reporting period, while 419 sold off their entire positions, according to Thomson Reuters data. That compared with 254 investors initiating Apple positions and 1,185 adding to existing holdings.

The charging herd drove the shares all the way down to $385 on April 19. They always overshoot. And that's when it's a great time to average down. Looks like many smaller investors did just that. Not a bad way to win over the longer horizon than a couple of quarters.