Whats been your biggest financial blunder

rickeeee

:mad: endownments 1 2 & 3

Glen_Clark

IronWolf wrote: »

It really wouldn't, it would have involved lots lots more money

But we have already had to bail out Retail depositors, plus everyone else.
At the risk of stating the obvious, bailing out domestic Retail depositors without everyone else would have cost less.
Iceland did, and is recovering well.

IronWolf wrote: »

how do you think it would have coped with ..... banks in the world going bankrupt?

How do you think we are going to cope with bailing them out?
Practically every day we discover more black holes, more calls on the taxpayer.

JohnRo

Glen_Clark wrote: »

How do you think we are going to cope with bailing them out?
Practically every day we discover more black holes, more calls on the taxpayer.

The wealthy elite have their hands on all the dials and levers, all they're doing is preserving their wealth and protecting their privileges at everyone else's expense.

The biggest problem by far has been toothless, incompetent and/or conspiratorial, so called regulators, bankers have corrupted the system with direct access to and influence on policy makers. Everyone knows several warnings of what was happening pre 2008 were issued and those making them were basically drummed out their jobs for upsetting the (rotten) apple cart. It's no different now because nothing has changed.

I've been watching a few news snippets recently about the banksters fightback in the US to preserve their power, inflicting massive pressure on the regulators in the US, through political interference, over the efforts to investigate and reform shady and shoddy practices. Current example is JP Morgan under investigation for all manner of wrong doing, voldemort, Iksil, Dimon, London whale. These people don't just break the rules they make the damned rules.

Literally no one knows how the heck any of these banks are managing their affairs, with trillions in shadow banking, off balance derivatives, securities and all manner of transactions completely off the regulators radar. What we do know is that the government stooges they control and empower will make absolutely sure everyone else is made to bail them out when the proverbial hits the fan again.

Next up, the derivatives time bomb.

jimjames

Having just gone through some old papers I think my biggest blunder was not investing more in Aberdeen New Dawn when I first started out. Shredding the old statements where I was buying the shares at around £1.60 when the current price is well over £10 makes you realise that the worries about paying 10% or 20% too much are irrelevant in the scale of long term investing.

If only I'd had that crystal ball all those years ago!

deadpeasant

jabbahut40 wrote: »

The old classic of buying high, selling low.

The most recent example was buying JPM Natural Resources fund for my SIPP at the top of the market a year or so ago. Currently 33% down. :eek:

I've not sold so technically not lost anything however expect to wait a long time for recovery.

Jabba

In mid 2011 I was a new lump-sum investor trying to put together a Tim Hale style portfolio. The one thing I still needed was commodities, so when the August crash happened I thought I was being clever in snapping up several commodities funds inc. JPM NR. They all proceeded to crash further (still about 23% down). And I bought them by selling a chunk of IL gilts which then proceeded to soar.

On balance I'm grateful I got an early lesson in the folly of market timing.

Masomnia

Bradford and Bingley shares. But then at the time I knew full well I was just putting all my money on red and hoping it came up.

UsernameAlreadyExists

atush wrote: »

and if you were posting here I was one those who told you to hold your buying spree lol.

Live and learn, we all do.

Check my join date. I wasn't. I wish I had joined earlier though ... this place is great

Glen_Clark

Having thought about it, I think my biggest financial blunder might have been taking taxpayer's cash to scrap my Rover Maestro and buy a foreign car under the Gordon Brown's crazy car scrappage scheme. It was in great condition, the Maestro was the last British mass produced car, so would have been worth a lot of money one day.

WendellG

rickeeee wrote: »

:mad: endownments 1 2 & 3

Me too, I ditched a repayment mortgage and bought a series of endowments as I moved. In the end they were averaging about 30% of what they were meant to do :mad:

The best thing I did was to ditch them early and go back to a repayment. It may of cost me more but at least the company wasn't getting any more commission out of me.

sabretoothtigger

Look at what triggered the financial crisis in the first place: it was the bankrupcy of Lehman Brothers and the US refusal to bail them out.

Reverse logic that is, how long have we bankrupted failed business. Must be thousands of years
This time its different pretty much sums up the fit of every mistake made . A company buying too much isnt the cause of an economic problem.
Look for details which genuinely are new and it should highlight causes much more, a private bank isnt it

worth a lot of money one day

Only if it was the MG or some limited edition. I remember a mate had one, it was like Knight Rider because the computer spoke