There have been far more downs than ups since then, though. The engineer had already issued one profit warning that year - a so-called "growth pause" in February, which neither I nor the market paid much attention to - but a second duly arrived within a few months of my bullish editorial, while 2015 has brought three more. At one stage its shares had plunged 60 per cent since I wrote. "Still holding Rolls-Royce?" a friend emailed me with more than a hint of schadenfreude - revenge, perhaps, for a 'told you so' moment I'd offered in summary of one of his less successful investments.
The answer to his question is yes, but for no other reason than I hadn't got around to asking myself the question of whether, in light of this year's rapid deterioration in market conditions, business performance and share price, I should be. But is Rolls-Royce so broken that there's no recovery in sight? Our sector specialist Daniel Liberto thinks it is, and that a sixth warning could be on the way, despite new chief executive Warren East's grand strategic plan revealed this week. But having left it so long to jump ship I see little point in selling now - Rolls-Royce is still a market leader, markets will improve, and with activists circling and former Arm Holdings boss Mr East at the helm it should deliver a few ups before long.
The second question my recent unhappy experience prompts is whether buy and hold is such a good strategy after all. If I'd been paying more attention - and was less philosophically inclined towards the approach - I might have decided that, with more pain likely to be on the way, I might well be able to buy the shares more cheaply in the future. The costs of trading out and back in again would certainly be far lower than the uncrystallised capital loss I've so far experienced. It's often been said that timing the market is a mug's game, and that you should run winners rather than banking gains. My experience with Rolls-Royce has taught me that a little judicious profit-taking when times get tough is probably more sensible.
