At the height of the market, my stocks were worth $86,000.
They were mostly in technology mutual funds. Now, the value is down to $34,500 for a loss of over $50,000. or 58%. It will take me years to make up the difference.
On the bright side, the $34,000 is a little more than I originally “invested” - if we can call this investment.
A mattress would have done just as well.
I lost 250G in 15 mos. Seems to be coming back a little. Gained 11G in three mos.
I’m long on Enron.
In high school (during the tech boom) I invested $1000 in a tech company’s stock. After splitting two different times, the total investment got as high as $40,000. Twice. The second time it got there I sold a fourth of my shares. I ended up missing out on about $30,000 (but it was only on paper :rolleyes: ). 1000% isn’t too bad of a profit, but if I’d had a better idea of what I was doing I should/would have made a lot more. The price of experience I guess.
Never lost a cent - never invested, either. I vaguely remember studying the stock market in 1969, but I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now.
What is this loss of which you speak? My stock portfolio is up 4% from this time last year. Don’t you just hate me?
Paper losses? More than I’d like. Actual losses? Nil.
I rode a penny stock from .05 to 1.25 and back down to .20 in spring 00. Oh, you pump-and-dump scam artists.
My portfolio is roughly equal to this time last year, but down 66% from a mere five weeks ago. We’re not gonna get into that.
The 529 accounts for the kiddies are down mildly, but not enough to keep me up at night. Our joint account has consistently made modest gains (~5-7%/yr.) after massive hemorraghing a few years ago largely thanks to Iomega, which was a screamer, then suddenly tanked, selling off 35% in one day or something incredible like that.
My husband’s 401k is doing very well thanks to his personal mix of stocks/bonds/mutual funds. However, my 401k is SMOKING because I dumped it all in Procter & Gamble when it went down to 58. It’s currently hanging around ~90.
The worst investment I ever made would have been in a Japanese Warrants fund about 10 years ago. Must have shrivelled up by 90%. It’s still there - maybe when I’m 98 years old I’ll check it out. Mercifully, it was a small investment.
My US/European stock invetsments are all in tracker funds, and I regularly drip money into them. My Hong Kong stock portfolio, which I manage myself, is so wonderful I have it on my website. Virtually everything is up - I started the portfolio in Sept 2000, and it is 35% up as a whole.
Hemlock, I’m betting that is the JF Japan Warrants Fund. It’s been down for about 15 years.
People, I wish you would be exact and specify actual losses. How much a stock has fallen from the peak would not be a “loss”. That would be a “wishful thinking paper loss” unless of course you bought at the highest price. Sorry, pet peeve of mine, and sure sign of a retail investor.
BWWWWHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA <–That’s the sound of Athena half laughing and half crying.
I have a shitload of stock options from my old job. At the height of the big stock market upswing, I had in excess of $1 Million. Yup, 1 million big ones. I was about half vested at the time, so figure half a mill, before taxes. I didn’t sell many, because I wanted to get a “plan” together for paying the tax (AMT scares the shit out of me) and I didn’t particularly need the money at the time, so I sat on 'em.
Fast forward to now. I vested almost all the options before I quit, and bought 'em after I quit. They’re worth maybe 140K now. Maybe. It’s too depressing to go look at 'em.
I laugh and I cry because 140K in what is essentially free money isn’t to be scoffed at. On the other hand, I had plans, baby… big plans for what I was gonna do with that $1 mill.
I’m still sittin’ on em, hoping the damn stock market will turn around at some point. So far, it just keeps going down, and down, and down. The company is doing good, has exceeded all their earnings on every earning report… and still it goes down.
Bah, I need to go get another beer just to get through this post. I hate stock. It’s too volatile. I’m going back to making money the old way, via my job. Bah!
Poor people don’t do the stock market;
on account of being poor and all.
(I’ll end this message here before I end up insulting those ‘other’ financial classes. . . . )
I’m actually doing OK for this market. For the year ended today my portfolio is up 11.5%. This is mostly due to the fact that my 100% indexed portfolio is heavily weighted towards small cap, micro cap, and small cap value stocks (these have very high risk). For instance, my ultra-small company (CRSP decile 10) index fund is up 29% for the year.
One thing that I wanted to comment on is that I often hear young people complaining about the bear market. If you’re young and expect to invest more money in the future, you should want a bear market, because that would reduce valuations, and you would effectively end up buying “low”. I’m in my 20’s, and I expect that the money I have in the market now will be small compared to the total amount I will invest later. I’m actually hoping for a big downturn.
Correct. There was also a JF Asia Pacific Warrants Fund that did brilliantly - sold that in the mid 90s or so, IIRC.
Wow. This thread has made me feel good. I’ve only lost about 6k and have been beating myself up over it. Now I don’t feel nearly as bad. I think when/if I ever break even I’m going to pull it all out and stuff it in my mattress.
I don’t play the market. But my father bought my mother some Ajax stocks in the 50s, which
she has today. I kept trying to find out what they are worth & all I can find out is that
Ajax is a dummy stock & just have to laugh at my fathers sense of humor.
We just cashed out our loser mutual fund (MFS Em Growth)at not quite rock bottom prices but our 10 grand in six years is now at 9300. I would’ve rode it out but just discovered (doh!)the fees were starting to really eat into it. Now looking at small cap value, No load & no 12b-1’s. First gonna park it in a money market (2.8%) compounded daily until I make up my mind. It’s marked for college fund and that’s another ten years out/ I 'm not sure about the 529’s. Only if there is a large pool of funds to choose from. Also discovered our once stellar MM was now at 0.78 APY.
I read Kiplingers which has been a good resource.
Any wisdom on Treasury Bonds out there?
I’ve taken a number of hits since I have been involved. Penny stocks in the early '80s, oil glut in late 80s, Pacific rim in the early 90s and the tech crash last year. I should add that a good portion of my retirement fund was in, you guessed it, Enron.
Generally speaking it happens just weeks after I get in those areas (days in some cases). I feel like a jinx (some day I will tell you about the countries and governments I have brought down by just visiting them). I still have some money in mutual funds and I have hopes for some of the communication stock and I think eventually the Pacific rim will come back.
But hey, I sort of look at the market like I look at poker. I never bet more than I can afford to lose.
Well, my 3Com cost me about $3000. But my vested and bought Xicor stock options from before I was laid off are up oh…lets see depending on which set of options, up between 400% and 100%, so all told would be worth around $30,000 if I sold them all at once.
It ain’t a loss until you sell it.
Wish I’d sold Putnam New Opportunity by March of 2000.
May the Gods bless the conservative geezers at Dodge & Cox.