Aviva shares

Thrugelmir

MX5huggy said:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=aviva+share+price&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

Google gives you a chart back to 1988, 2001 the share price was about £9.50 today £4.12 a little less than half. That your investment is worth about what you started with, ignoring inflation is good fortune. 

The shares weren't Aviva until 2006. Then the GFC hit shortly afterwards. Wasn't just banks that took a hit. Impacted across the entire financial services sector. 

Thrugelmir

lozzy1965 said:

Eco_Miser said:

lozzy1965 said:

eskbanker said:

sinlimites said:

I find it hard to believe that over 20 years the value of the investment has not risen at all.

In which case you need to spend time understanding the pros and (especially) cons of investing in individual company shares - many company shares are ultimately worth nothing at all, so it's a high risk activity....

Hmmm, but the vast majority are worth something!  Not that I would disagree that buying 1 or only a limited number of individual company shares isn't a risky activity.

The vast majority of existing company shares are worth something, but if you include all the failed companies whose shares are already worth nothing, but were worth something when hopeful investors piled their money in, eskbanker's statement becomes self-evident.

Well, yes, but I was really referring to publicly listed companies and more specifically, as the comment was made in a thread  about Aviva I would draw a distinction between individual company shares in - say - AIM vs Larger cap.  I'm not sure how big the list of failed companies is in such cases, but my gut feeling is that it is vastly smaller.  I'm happy for someone to come back with the numbers if my gut is drastically wrong though!

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

lozzy1965

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

Thrugelmir

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

A failing listed business is more likely to be taken over than go bust.  Those that go bust tend to be fraudulent in some way. Polly Peck, Maxwell Publishing, 

Patisserie Valerie spring to mind. With AIM one needs to remember that it's a far less regulated market. In the early days (2006) there were listing by speculative miners and mineral companies. Since then the AIM market has matured with some quality well run companies. 

eskbanker

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

Ironically my comment that sparked this was at least partly inspired by a recent similar exchange on a Bitcoin thread....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78355214/#Comment_78355214

lozzy1965

eskbanker said:

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

Ironically my comment that sparked this was at least partly inspired by a recent similar exchange on a Bitcoin thread....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78355214/#Comment_78355214

Ha ha, yes I follow that thread with morbid interest

lozzy1965

Thrugelmir said:

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

A failing listed business is more likely to be taken over than go bust.  Those that go bust tend to be fraudulent in some way. Polly Peck, Maxwell Publishing, 

Patisserie Valerie spring to mind. With AIM one needs to remember that it's a far less regulated market. In the early days (2006) there were listing by speculative miners and mineral companies. Since then the AIM market has matured with some quality well run companies. 

Yes, I'm excluding AIM for sure - as far too risky.  Take overs don't necessarily result in a loss of investment on the share owner though.  I've had quite a few gains (as well as fortunate saves) from such events over the years.  It just shows how hard it is to get the facts about which companies have 'effectively' gone bust, and which ones have 'effectively' continued, but under another guise.
But to anyone not reading the whole of this thread - Individual shares ARE more risky than funds, and diversification is a must in both cases.  

Thrugelmir

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

lozzy1965 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Look back at the FTSE constituents over the years.  

I wasn't really intending to hi-jack this thread for this interesting thought exchange.  I certainly don't want to end up in a 'BITCOIN' thread!  But just had a quick - not exhaustive - search.  Not so easy to find companies that have gone bust as the results I have found also includes drop outs, take overs, merges...  A few early MSE threads popped up too!
Still stand by my gut feeling

A failing listed business is more likely to be taken over than go bust.  Those that go bust tend to be fraudulent in some way. Polly Peck, Maxwell Publishing, 

Patisserie Valerie spring to mind. With AIM one needs to remember that it's a far less regulated market. In the early days (2006) there were listing by speculative miners and mineral companies. Since then the AIM market has matured with some quality well run companies. 

Yes, I'm excluding AIM for sure - as far too risky.  Take overs don't necessarily result in a loss of investment on the share owner though.  I've had quite a few gains (as well as fortunate saves) from such events over the years.  It just shows how hard it is to get the facts about which companies have 'effectively' gone bust, and which ones have 'effectively' continued, but under another guise.
But to anyone not reading the whole of this thread - Individual shares ARE more risky than funds, and diversification is a must in both cases.  

It's hard to find them because it doesn't happen often. Listed companies operate under far greater levels of regulation than unlisted ones do. Also are accountable to shareholders. Who are often pro active when the company's board fails to deliver. Very different world to the murky goings on within unlisted private companies. Where failure is far from uncommon for a whole variety of reasons. .