What's your biggest single stock loss?

[barnz2k]

Yep, whats one of your biggest blunders?
Whats the biggest loss you have had on a single stock?

Have a few close to 50% down now, but one in particular 75%, ouch (none sold though yet)

 

[nioka]

It is not hard to lose 100% of a particular stock. I've done it a few times and will again in the future. FNT looks like the next. The last was Gympie gold. My first was Hauraki Whaling around about 1959. If you dabble in specs it will happen. Gympie gold was not even a spec but a mine collapse followed a few months later with a fire in the coal mine sent them packing. Just spread the risk and it's bearable. Remember if you lose the lot you can at least get a tax write off.

 

[ta2693]

CNP bought at $1.8 sold at $1
Learnt a lesson in a hard way "never catch a following dagger".

 

[barnz2k]

If you dabble in specs it will happen.

hmm good point, bigger risk/reward.

ta - 'falling dagger' maybe? - yeah im learning a few too!

 

[MichaelD]

It's scary that the majority response at the moment is ">30% - Whats a stop loss?".

Think about the sheer mathematics of this game, folks;

Pick 1 x 100% winner.
This will pay for 10 x 10% losers
This will pay for 3 x 33% losers
This will pay for 2 x 50% losers
This will pay for 1 x 100% loser

You can have many, many small losers and still be highly profitable. You can't have many big losers before you cannot play any more.

It's not about being right. It's about being profitable.

(ps I've never lost more than about 2% even with slippage on a single position - most of my losses are 0.5% - 1% in size)

 

[Synergy]

I think it's very realistic to have a 30% loss as a trader. For my system that would likely happen once a year or so. Gap downs can hurt you.

But i think that even if the majority of people have had a loss greater than 50%, it's probably paid for itself by now. Most people learn from mistakes, especially if they're big ones. I'm not sure it's a bad thing to have a big loss when you first start out. If you start by throwing a bit of spare cash at a few random shares, with not much idea about anything, you'll soon learn about money management when you have a big loss.

 

[Sean K]

Had two stocks go into administration.

Fun!

 

[cuttlefish]

yeah I've had a couple go into receivership as well (back in the early 90's - have learnt some lessons since then so hopefully likely to avoid a repeat, but never say never).

 

[refined silver]

It's scary that the majority response at the moment is ">30% - Whats a stop loss?".

Think about the sheer mathematics of this game, folks;

Pick 1 x 100% winner.
This will pay for 10 x 10% losers
This will pay for 3 x 33% losers
This will pay for 2 x 50% losers
This will pay for 1 x 100% loser

You can have many, many small losers and still be highly profitable. You can't have many big losers before you cannot play any more.

It's not about being right. It's about being profitable.

(ps I've never lost more than about 2% even with slippage on a single position - most of my losses are 0.5% - 1% in size)

Sorry not true.

Like Noika said it totally depends on what you are playing. If they are real speccies a 30% loss is nothing and a 100% gain is nothing. Your maths are incorrect for speccies, (but maybe totally correct for what you play)

In the last few years I've had a 20 bagger, quite a few x10, and many x5 or better. I've also had a 90% loss, one which lost 96%, gained 600% (meaning I was still down 60%) I sold then, and yet it came back to where I bought it from, meaning a 1600% gain from its lows then it stabilised there, I was already out of course. I've had quite a few losses greater than 50%, some realised some still holding. I hold over 30 stocks.

I am in a slow process of trying to work out where to put stops for the type of stocks I trade, at the moment 40-50% is looking like the most profitable point. To make it too much tighter, I would have missed out on many large gains.

Speccy maths. - a real example from 6 months ago.

Bought 4 speccy oil stocks, one a producer, two with defined resources, one w. very good prospects

After 4 months:

1. +500%
2. -20%
3. -40%
4. -60%

Overall result - after $2k in each, started with $8k, now around $13.5k or 60% gain. If you get one good winner in speccies, it can more than pay for 3-4 to lose 80%. As for stops, the 500% winner, dropped 40% before it took off.

All the above stocks are treated as investments rather than speculation, I will still sell quickly if situation warrants it, but holding for a while is the norm.

Just wanted to show another side of the coin.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

Stop Losses aye?

Let me tell you a sad story. Go back about 18 months maybe when MMX was at $1.10 to $1.25 for quite a while. It went up and down in this bracket for some time. It got to about $1.30 at one stage and I put a stop loss on at $1.18 and went away for 2 weeks.

When I came back the price had dropped to like $1.17 the day after I left, the stopper activated, and then the stock ran away up. When I returned it was already way up in price. Everyday I looked at it and thought it wont go anyhigher...but it did.

I haven't stopped kicking myself yet.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

Oh yeah, biggest single stock loss


LKO - Lakes Oil

Bought in at 7 cents and now what are they worth about .00000001 cent.

 

[wildkactus]

MST, it was a dog with fleas over 60% loss

 

[bergers_n_fries]

ZFX...around 40% loss...from $16 to $10.40

useless stock

 

[adobee]

FMG I bought $5k at $3 and sold out at $11 equivalent price today is $110 before the ten for one break up ie $185,000 loss.. and even worse I sold cause i read so many negative comments on the FMG thread saying it had run its course and the gains had already been had etc etc...

Real loss ZFX i still think this is cheap but dont have the time to sit and hold it ..

 

[Romeo75]

ERG - I only spent around $1,500 back when I was having a little dabble on the stock market & had no idea what I was doing. My holding is worth around $10 now, if that We live & learn.

 

[Dukey]

I had a few rippers early on - companies into receivership - TMS and Chemeq were the worst I think. Lost a few thousand on each.

Also lost a heap with the BT 'time' fund in the dot com crash so - be aware not only direct held shares can come tumbling down. Fund managers fall into the same traps as the rest of us.

- There was also a thread about a year back called 'your worst investment blunders and lessons learnt' which gathered a few nasty stories... (I remember cause I started that thread!!)

I think the most important lessons I learned were
1. don't get attached to a particular stock.
2. Cut your losses off and let your winners run. - whether you do this by stop losses or other means probably depends on your investment style.
-dukey

oh yeah - 3. punter psychology/ market sentiment is just as powerful as any other influence on the market ... maybe more... maybe its everything?? ... sometimes....... comments?

 

[mr_delta]

Biggest loss (unrealised as I haven't sold out yet) is in BRO atm...

Bought @ 1.1c average and presently @ 0.02c...

Bought a decent parcel of BRO because it declared a maiden profit (for the quarter) and announced spinning off a mining division...the sp slide hurts so much now that I do not even feel looking at my holding overall as it shows this massive red figure...feel like buying @ 0.02c as it can bring down the average to a respectable figure but haven't got the spare cash to top up now...

 

[AnDy62]

Ahh I've had a few nice ones;

HTA, bought 41c, sold 13c
MSC, bought 13c, sold around 4c
AVX (a current one), bought at 80c now 28c (though I've averaged down.. as it was a small parcel)
EXM is getting there too, 3.5c to 1.9c (purely a small bottom drawer deal)

 

[barnz2k]

Some interesting reads and poll ! Glad im not the only one

Dukey - ahh I tried to search for a similar one first but didnt see it.

My worst, down 75% is VBA - Bought around 2.53 and now 0.62. They had recently been noted as the 2nd most profitable airline, passengers up and expanding into aus-us market. But other factors brought it down and then TOLL scrapped its sell offer which saw it tumble 22% in a day.

Other baddies are BNB, currently -57%!! But this at at least has a chance to makeup ground, and GTP down 46%

 

[netbank]

Other baddies are BNB, currently -57%!! But this at at least has a chance to makeup ground, and GTP down 46%

I feel your pain.. I'm down 45.7% for BNB.. my only holding atm. At this price it is a good opportunity to buy more BNB but all my cash spent on home reno.