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Name your Biggest stock loss yet...

21pro

Crotch Sniffer
Oct 22, 2003
7,830
1
0
Caledon East
Mine was with Abitibi-Bowater.

500 shares @ $42.16 ... value now? 0

Ouch!
 

hinz

New member
Nov 27, 2006
5,672
1
0
Bought Citibank/Citigroup @ $42 and sold around $25, before the perfect storm, aka the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

Plus, I did not have the guts to allocate whatever remaining after selling Citibank at a loss by buying a truck load of either SKF or FXP, while suggesting others to try pair trade such as buying equal amount of long on Wal-Mart and selling equal amount of short on any financial!!

Simply put, I did not walk the talk....at that time :(
 

JohnLarue

Well-known member
Jan 19, 2005
16,157
2,147
113
The really smart investment professionals place more focus on preventing losses, rather than on picking the winners
 

aznguy99

Member
Nov 21, 2008
409
0
16
The really smart investment professionals place more focus on preventing losses, rather than on picking the winners
The really smart investors first focus on value investing but also have risk management strategies in place such as stop loss....exit strategies should also be on the upside....always rebalance your portfolio so that you don't overweight a stock too much.....

it is a pretty simple strategy but just as playing poker you should know when to hold and when to fold
 

tboy

resident smartass
Aug 18, 2001
15,972
0
0
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way out in left field
Canadian Tire Class a: $72,00 per share $201,600.00
when I was laid off: 7.35 and I HAD to sell most of them.... $30,500.00
 

tboy

resident smartass
Aug 18, 2001
15,972
0
0
63
way out in left field
I don't know about that ROck, remember a little company called Bre-X???

A LOT of people lost everything on that, including their life.
 

Rockslinger

Banned
Apr 24, 2005
32,783
0
0
Canadian Tire Class a: $72,00 per share $201,600.00
when I was laid off: 7.35 and I HAD to sell most of them.... $30,500.00
tboy, I don't understand how you lost money on Canadian Tire? I bought the thing at $20, saw it go to $80 before it fell back to the $50's due to the recession.
 

21pro

Crotch Sniffer
Oct 22, 2003
7,830
1
0
Caledon East
wow... this thread quickly points out who the real investors are... and who are the guru's telling us about preventing losses... yeah, tell us another truth, whompa!

I also lost nearly everything on Penn Treaty American Insurance... bought at about $1.60... now it's worth pennies.

and Liquidation World, which I thought would do well in a recession, bought around $3 now at 40 cents.
 

oil&gas

Well-known member
Apr 16, 2002
12,220
1,618
113
Ghawar
tboy, I don't understand how you lost money on Canadian Tire? I bought the thing at $20, saw it go to $80 before it fell back to the $50's due to the recession.
Around 1999 Canadian Tire, I remember, dropped from its high of $50+ all the
way to below $20. You were one luck guy if you brought it in 2000. I remember
it took 2--3 years for it to recover to its previous high.

Stock investing is more a game of timing than stock picking unless you
hold your position to death. I lost big time on this penny stock Fission Energy
when it shot from around $0.70 to nearly $1.80 and then fell all the way to
$0.50. Having taken a big loss I had the fortune of picking it up around $0.20
and ride it up to above $1.00 in just a few (6--8) weeks. Ain't gambling in
the Bay street casino fun?
 

big dogie

Active member
Jun 15, 2003
1,227
0
36
in a van down by the river
for me it was oil.to first bought 4% at $13, another 4% at $3 and sold at $1.50. around that time I bought 20% g.to around $19 ( I believe I told terbland to back up the truck on this one) sold 1/3 at $32 another 1/3 at $43 and still hold last third, probably buy back into it in the summer.

b d
 

tboy

resident smartass
Aug 18, 2001
15,972
0
0
63
way out in left field
Around 1999 Canadian Tire, I remember, dropped from its high of $50+ all the
way to below $20. You were one luck guy if you brought it in 2000. I remember
it took 2--3 years for it to recover to its previous high.


Stock investing is more a game of timing than stock picking unless you
hold your position to death. I lost big time on this penny stock Fission Energy
when it shot from around $0.70 to nearly $1.80 and then fell all the way to
$0.50. Having taken a big loss I had the fortune of picking it up around $0.20
and ride it up to above $1.00 in just a few (6--8) weeks. Ain't gambling in
the Bay street casino fun?
Exactly. Walmart announced that it was coming up here and all retailer's stock plummeted to the basement.

Couple that with the feds putting in a rule that no company could could only invest in their own stock in an employee stock/retirement plan and everyone of the investments tanked.

As I said: my share unit value went from $72.00 to $7.35. It was actually worse than that because I had 2 or 3 more years of contributing on top of what I already had in the various plans.

I was hosed up the ass and sideways because not only did I have to convert some on leaving, but I was without work for a while and needed the funds to survive.

This is one of the reasons I will NEVER work for "the man" ever again. No way no how. 16 yrs with them I should have come away golden.......
 

Rockslinger

Banned
Apr 24, 2005
32,783
0
0
Nobody mentioned JDS. Here is a sad but true story. It was reported numerous times in the media so I can talk about it here. I don't remember the actual numbers but will use imaginary numbers for illustration purposes.

Jack Jones was an employee of JDS and a member of their stock option plan. He exercises his options to buy the stock at $2 when the market price was $20. The difference of $18 was treated as an "employee benefit" and taxable at 25% so jack paid $4.50 in taxes. Later the stock sinks to $2 and Jack sells and triggers a capital loss of $18 BUT HE IS NOT ALLOWED TO OFFSET THE $18 CAPITAL LOSS AGAINST THE EARLIER $18 EMPLOYEE BENEFIT. Long story short, I think Jack eventually got some kind of "ministerial relief".
 
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