What's your biggest single stock loss?

[son of baglimit]

ceoo - c@ options - expired march 2008.
bought the story in 2006 - not a big loss, but probably the loss i had to have.

 

[So_Cynical]

NTC - NETCOMM LIMITED

Lucky for me i got divorced so was forced to sell (settlement) and took a 40% loss...if i was selling today it would be about 75% loss.

 

[traydor]

hi all i brought 5000dollars of fmg at 62 cents sold out at 3.20 oh well ...........

 

[livid]

Great topic given the current climate. Im new to this, started my sharemarket investing about mid 2007 (ie just before the s...t hit the fan). Some of my biggest losses (on paper as I hadn't bothered with stop losses) are:

QAN - bought at 5.44 (I dont even want to work out the percentage loss on that)
CGF - First bought at 5.59, the again at 3.22, and lastly at 1.75 (happy about that one so far)
SUN - bought at 20.30
MGR - 5.75 (that hurts - come on property turnaround)

Glad Im in this for the long term. All I need now is the oil price to nosedive, credit crisis to be official ruled over, and the property sector to go nuts. Hope Santa is on this forum

 

[AnDy62]

All I need now is the oil price to nosedive, credit crisis to be official ruled over, and the property sector to go nuts. Hope Santa is on this forum

Lol 'The credit crisis is officially over, as of now' wouldn't that be nice. Ahhh... to dream.

 

[tulasi74]

If you are talking percentage loss then Sons of Gwalia. 100% loss. If you are talking $$$, then I have a hell of a lot of unrealised losses.

Haven't picked many winners either but as long as you keep learning and improving, it will turn around.

 

[nioka]

If you are talking percentage loss then Sons of Gwalia. 100% loss. .

Sons of Gwalia!!!!! That is one I got out of easily. I sent the MD an email after they put out a good report but ended the report with a statement that there would be no dividend that year. I accused him of paying the directors an increased payment but paying the shareholders nothing. His reply was that if I didn't like the way the company was run that I should sell my shares to someone who did. I sold the day I got the Email and put the funds into Sally Malay. You win some and you lose some.

It must be around 2 years since they stopped trading. Did they ever get wound up so that the loss was a taxable deduction?

 

[Broadside]

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

useless stock

that's nothing I made a 100% loss on Pasminco when it went into admin...I bought it when it was already in stress so no problem. Had plenty of options expire worthless in various ventures. Have had plenty of big losses and plenty of big gains and am well ahead...I am with refined silver and nioka on that one. You take the risks with the rewards, part of the game. So long as you learn from mistakes, they're valuable. I seem to be getting wiser....slowly.

 

[Go Nuke]

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)

Ah similar story for me too Andy,

AVX at 96c to take advantage of the rights issue which was 52c i think....now 34c after a good run today

CUV bought at about $1.00 now about 28c. At least with Bio stocks they tend to be long term stocks imo.

And of course good old ERN.
Bought at 58c. Since then its had a low of 6.6c I think a couple of months back.

Still hold all these as I explained for the bio stocks. As for ERN. It was one of the first stocks I ever bought. So a few lessons learned.
I also remain bullish on uranium long term.....so guess it isnt a loss till i sell lol

Oh and EXM..yes bought at 3.5c.
Even BMN. Topped up at $3.47, now they are -$2

 

[tarlox]

abs bought $7.20 sold $1.56

 

[rub92me]

BDG - Bought at 80 cents just after they did a big capital raising and then they announced that they stopped production. Gapped straight through my stop loss to 30 cents. Ouch. Got my revenge though by trading the bounce straight after and got most of my lost money back. Taught me not too put too many eggs in one basket. Stop losses are good, but beware of black swans.

 

[the barry]

Six years ago I got the opportunity to invest every cent i owned into an ipo for a stock called mwc which had technology which was going to "change the world." Today I am waiting for the case to go to court. I invested 6 figures into it and expect to see very little in return. Whilst the technology didn't change the world, it certainly changed mine. lol

Disclaimer, whilst i would never invest all my eggs in one basket, the tolly group tested the technology and released a report stating the technology worked. It was after that point I dived in head first. Live and learn.

 

[golfmos123]

About to close a 100% loss on LAF when the administrators finally issue the notice that shareholders will get nothing back. Sad part is I only got on board 4 days before it ceased trading on the back of some advice from someone who I will not take advice from again. I guess I failed to DMOR!!!

 

[TheAbyss]

MFS/OCV Bought in at 1.02 thinking it had gone as low as it could. Ouch, looks like i am going to lose 100%. Only a small % of total portfolio howver the words falling knife make a lot of sense now.

Lesson learned.

 

[adobee]

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...

did you get some free shares or options in the new mining company though ??

 

[dum3886]

MQG 86---> 55 (although i havn't sold ride it out hehe... was at low 40s b4 wasn't very happy when that happened)
CTX 23 ---> 12

and yes this was when i was very new.. like VERY... i just put into random stocks... and well boom there goes ur money. Makes u realise making money in the stock market isn't all that easy... must do ur own research and not just pray that the market will remain bullish.

 

[ShareDevil]

BOL - Boom logistics... more like BUST logistics!
290 >>>> 110

Lucky I made some elsewhere so the tax write off eases the pain a little :aufreg:

 

[eddyeagle]

Very interesting thread indeed!

I think the key point is that everyone is going to have losses. They are inevitable. Even the best fund managers get it wrong occasionally.

I had Henry Walker Eltin go into Administration a few years back and lost the lot on that...wrote it off against my capital gains...

At the moment i have a couple of dodgy ones in my portfolio of 15 stocks. Dio is down 50% and AUW down about 30%

It's interesting to read about people's different approaches to stop losses. I think how you approach stop losses depends on the type of stocks you invest in and also your time frame...

I invest in a lot of speccies myself and these stocks tend to have wild swings, especially in volatile conditions... They can easily fall 30% without any of the fundamentals changing...But given that my investment horizon is usually several years, I am happy to ride out the 30% if I can still see a positive future for the company. However, if the future does not look so rosy and the company announcements get ugly, that is when I will be happy to sell and take a loss.

 

[prawn_86]

Yeh good thread people.

Although i would like to hear from those "who never lose"! LOL

 

[Julia]

BKN (Bradken). Had been doing well and then fell 40% in half an hour on profit downgrade. Waited expecting a recovery. Didn't happen. Sold with greater than 50% loss.