I bought JAIS shares - eek!

drdjnicholls

I bought £250 shares in JAIS (JPMorgan Asian Inv Trust) two months ago. Its a long story why/how I did this, but as anyone will see, my action was that of a fool (as soon as I bought them the spread meant that I lost over 60%). The current price just keeps on dropping and I would imagine they will shortly be worth as close to almost nothing as is possible.
I simply do not know what to do now and wonder if I should just hold on to them for another 6 or so months and then sell, whatever their price (At least I will be rid of them!). Is this another foolish action? Any light being shed would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Linton

When you buy shares you buy them in the expectation that they will increase in value over the long term. In the short term, say upto 3-5 years, they will fluctuate in value. This shouldnt matter to you as an investor.

Funds hold lots of individual company's shares so any one company failing has a minimal effect on your holding - in a fund you are very unlikely to lose the lot. If JAIS (which is a fund of shares) was a good buy 2 months ago it is surely an even better buy now as it is cheaper.

Over the past year the previous rapid growth in Asian funds has come to a halt. possibly because of concerns about China and because the USA and Europe look to be safer places to invest than they did in the aftermath of the 2008/2009 crash. At some stage Asia will start to increase again.

If you cant accept fluctuating values or dont want to tie up some of your money for 5 years or more you should stop thinking about investing and put up with the very small interest you get from bank accounts.

horace972897

Which symbol you looking at for prices for your IT?

JAI.L or JAIS.L

Results will be rather different depending which you look at

...................

Linton

jon-w wrote: »

Which symbol you looking at for prices for your IT?

JAI.L or JAIS.L

Results will be rather different depending which you look at

...................

Good point - I hadnt noticed! In fact I had never met Subs (Subscription) shares before. Thanks to Google it would seem that these were issued in 2009 giving the right to buy the main Trust at 203p. They expire on 31st March 2014.

As the value of JPM Asian Trust is currently 195.5p the subscription shares are more or less worthless.

horace972897

Yeah i'm hoping the OP bought the IT's and not the Subs - as you say paying anything to pay more than you can buy the IT's for even if it is less than NAV is mental.

gadgetmind

I've never hit the button with the wrong ticker in there, but I got very close once. It's a valuable lesson to check and recheck, and never trust any articles to get tickers right as they get the wrong all the time.

westy22

They must be JAIS if they have lost 60% in 2 months. If you quickly sell today you may be lucky and get 1p each - by this time next week they will be worthless I suspect.

horace972897

I'm hoping the OP has always been looking at wrong ticker (except when clicking buy )


Ok, maybe a long shot

drdjnicholls

Many thanks for replies to my message. These are much appreciated.

Like an idiot, it was JAIS or JAIS.L, the subscription shares, that I bought! And yes, it was the wrong one that I clicked on! (I suppose the only moral here is that I've learned my lesson). I meant to buy another JP Morgan share altogether.
So do I understand correctly that on 1 April they will be worthless and will never be of any value ever again?
As I will only get 250x 1p = £2.50 and it will cost more than that to sell, so it looks as if my stupidity has cost me £250! Phew!

I am new to this mode of saving/investment and only decided to try shares rather than take 2% or less from Building Societies. The good news is that in other shares I have done OK. I adopt the 'take the money and run' scenario: as soon as there is a decent gain, e.g., as in WHSmiths, I sell rather than risk losing the gain. Otherwise, settle for a share that produces a dividend that's better than the Building Society
rate
Apart from my incredibly stupid mistake with JAIS, this has worked well so far and generated some welcome extra income for me in a short period. As stated I am a complete novice at this.
Thanks again to all those who kindly replied.

drdjnicholls

Sorry, I should have made this clearer. So my question is:
Do I understand correctly that on 1 April they will be worthless and will never be of any value ever again?

If the answer is 'yes',. I will just have to psychologically write them off as a BIG mistake, not to be repeated.

gadgetmind

drdjnicholls wrote: »

it looks as if my stupidity has cost me £250! Phew!

That's not too bad a cost for such a valuable lesson! I've made such *much* bigger mistakes in my life but fortunately these were got out of the way fairly yearly on so I could recover.