Lost money on shares what to do?

boomish

Not sure if I can ask this here, but have no idea what to do, I have lost nearly £4300 share value on Future PLC shares I bought about 5 years back, I thought I was buying value when they dropped from £8 to below a pound and bought at 0.92 , now they are worth 0.17:(
I have been hanging on to them for over 4 years now hoping they would go up, they stayed at .30 for a while but have dropped again about 2 years ago now it's so low I would get less than 1k for the 6k I invested.
I feel so stupid as this is now a huge amount for us to loose, work has been really tough over the last few years etc

Can anyone advise us what to do?

I am holding them with MoneyExtra.com at the moment.

Appreciate any help..

OneADay

Not much idea about the company but it seems to be into media and magazines - which would have taken hit with increase in online reading of such material.

I used to deal in shares between 95 and 2001, gave up made up losses and never tried again. I lost on some deals and won on others so overall I made profit.

Were I to be in your position, I would have taken money out if price was dropping below £7 if not earlier - too late for that.

Do your research into the company and see if the market will pick up or not.

One option, take half out only £500 now and leave the rest in the shares as another gamble.

When you get losses in share deals, I always used to offset them with winnings from shares in other companies - to do that you need to have the money to play with.

Capital gains/losses might get you some tax back? Not sure how that works.

amcluesent

>Can anyone advise us what to do?<

Move on. That money is gone for good.

Biggles

boomish wrote: »

Can anyone advise us what to do?

Go over the fundamentals of the company, looking particularly at what attracted you to them in the first place, and decide whether, if you didn't already hold them, you would choose to buy them now at the current price.

If you wouldn't, sell them.

In future, never invest in one company, you need a portfolio of, say, half a dozen at least to spread the risk.

mark13

Did you buy them within an ISA ?
When the shares I have lost more than I am comfortable with , I have cut my losses and sold them, and reinvested into companies that may be more profitable. Sometimes it has paid off, sometimes not.
If it was me I'd sell and reinvest.

boomish

thanks for the feedback, yep I suppose it's gone for good, I used to write for the company and it was always doing well, dunno why I invested so much, I had the money at the time and it seemed quite safe, it dropped so quickly I j=kinda hung on in there hoping it would go back up evena little I had a chance to sell at .60 now it's only .17 it hardly seems worth selling:(

Wobblydeb

It sounds as if you don't really have the appetite for the risk of equity investing at the moment? When you invested was the money 'spare cash' but not any more?

You do need to write off the lost investment and focus on the money that remains and what you should do with that. Have a good think about what your current objectives and attitude to risk are.

boomish

Wobblydeb wrote: »

It sounds as if you don't really have the appetite for the risk of equity investing at the moment? When you invested was the money 'spare cash' but not any more?
.

yep exactly, I just need to decide to draw out the remaining cash or hang in for some more years. it's value is about £990 left from 6k invested. Stupid I know but I really could do with that money now..

westy69

just my beginners opinion but if you think the company has a future leave the money where it is, if you feel the co could go down the pan take it out, try iii and lse.co.uk for opinions/info on the company, good luck whatever you do

Farway

FWIW I had Marconi shares, via a company sharesave scheme, bought at around £4 & watched them go from £25 to zilch & bust during the dotcom boom

Take the money & run is my advice

dunstonh

This is the risk of placing so much money in a single share. Especially a share that is in an industry that is in big decline.