Your Biggest Investment Losses

newatc

Someone convinced me to buy shares in Bolton Wanderers on the basis of the property they owned when they won promotion to Premier League, they price would shoot up. They got promoted but the shares never took off and in a couple of year after promotion they were worthless. I still have the share certificate somewhere, a company once offered to buy the shares off me for £10 but I couldn't be bothered.
Apart from the money, I wasted a few years supporting them from afar!

Saga

newatc said:

Someone convinced me to buy shares in Bolton Wanderers on the basis of the property they owned when they won promotion to Premier League, they price would shoot up. They got promoted but the shares never took off and in a couple of year after promotion they were worthless. I still have the share certificate somewhere, a company once offered to buy the shares off me for £10 but I couldn't be bothered.
Apart from the money, I wasted a few years supporting them from afar!

Ouch! Well they're mid-table now so maybe in couple seasons...

IvanOpinion

I once owned shares in Bradford and Bingley - they went to zero.
I still own shares in Lloyds - worth a fraction of their value at the peak of the market.
had a few other losses but they have been very minor compared to the overall portfolio (although the financial crash in 2007ish was rather unpleasant for a while).

Thrugelmir

Audaxer said:

Saga said:

It's always made very clear that investing isn't saving and your capital is always at risk.  What tends to be missing, for newbie/potential investors, are actual real life cautionary tales of ordinary everyday sensible people who have invested at an appropriate level of risk for them, not tried to beat the market, not panicked, played the 10+ year long game etc etc but who still lost a lot of their investment.

I'm sure we have all made mistakes in investing, but I think the investors who will have lost a lot of their investment will mostly be those that did panic and sold during an equity crash. 

Investors were wise to jump ship during the Dot Com boom. (If that's the market they were invested in). Technology funds tanked and lost around 90% eventually. 

Jonty6262

£1k in polly peck in 1980,worth £1.3m in 1990.The rest is history. 

vart400

My biggest investment mistake is physical silver just after the 2008 crash. I watched too many youtube videos at the time saying silver was a good investment and going much higher. It took around 10 years to just about get my money back, selling to the next "silver stackers" who got sucked in. Even then I think I made a slight loss as I didn't keep track of purchasing prices at the time.

There was such a silver mania back at the time that I got sucked in, It feels very similar  to the crypto hype we're seeing now. 
I saw this one bloke in a coin shop in London who walked in on his lunch break with £1k cash and wanted to leave with silver, as he saw it as a great investment. He bought £1k's worth of sterling silver £5 coins, the shop owner encouraged him to take them out of the airtight capsule. He then walked out the shop with them all loose inside a shopping bag. I often wonder at what point he realized his mistake.

jimjames

Thrugelmir said:

Audaxer said:

Saga said:

It's always made very clear that investing isn't saving and your capital is always at risk.  What tends to be missing, for newbie/potential investors, are actual real life cautionary tales of ordinary everyday sensible people who have invested at an appropriate level of risk for them, not tried to beat the market, not panicked, played the 10+ year long game etc etc but who still lost a lot of their investment.

I'm sure we have all made mistakes in investing, but I think the investors who will have lost a lot of their investment will mostly be those that did panic and sold during an equity crash. 

Investors were wise to jump ship during the Dot Com boom. (If that's the market they were invested in). Technology funds tanked and lost around 90% eventually. 

When you say "eventually" I'm assuming you're not suggesting they're still 90% lower than they were in 2000?

Thrugelmir

jimjames said:

Thrugelmir said:

Audaxer said:

Saga said:

It's always made very clear that investing isn't saving and your capital is always at risk.  What tends to be missing, for newbie/potential investors, are actual real life cautionary tales of ordinary everyday sensible people who have invested at an appropriate level of risk for them, not tried to beat the market, not panicked, played the 10+ year long game etc etc but who still lost a lot of their investment.

I'm sure we have all made mistakes in investing, but I think the investors who will have lost a lot of their investment will mostly be those that did panic and sold during an equity crash. 

Investors were wise to jump ship during the Dot Com boom. (If that's the market they were invested in). Technology funds tanked and lost around 90% eventually. 

When you say "eventually" I'm assuming you're not suggesting they're still 90% lower than they were in 2000?

Some companies died a slower death. Corrections aren't instanteous and spontaneous. Out of 165 Nasdaq companies at the time. Only around 25% had survived 3 years on. Investors are notorious for hanging on for recovery in share prices rather than cutting their losses. 

MaxiRobriguez

Currently nursing a £2.5k paper loss on Boohoo and I closed a position in MicroFocus earlier this year for a £1k loss.

£30k in a China fund at the start of this year is no longer worth £30k also.

noclaf

When I started investing (not including pensions) I made the mistake of beginning with AIM listed miners . Let's just say it was a baptism of fire.....I fondly remember 'making' £3k profit and then pretty much losing the lot and more within a day....
I also lost money on Globo and EMED mining...the latter was due to some dodgy practices at the firm. I don't touch AIM oilies and miners with a bargepole now. In fact Ive avoided single stock investments since, I will go back in at some point but for now 'boring' global trackers and funds does the job.