What was your worst investment ?

[Tommy Tainant]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

 

[fncceo]

30,000 shares of WorldCom bought in 1999

 

[Darkwind]

England. I had such hopes too.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

30,000 shares of WorldCom bought in 1999

I watched a film about the mortgage fraud the other night. The problem is that the banks and the people who perpetrate these things are cleverer than the folk who regulate them and can also afford better advice.

 

[fncceo]

30,000 shares of WorldCom bought in 1999

I watched a film about the mortgage fraud the other night. The problem is that the banks and the people who perpetrate these things are cleverer than the folk who regulate them and can also afford better advice.

I certainly hope so. Cleverer folks go where the compensation matches their skills.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Global Crossing. It still hurts

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Global Crossing. It still hurts

Is that the airline Frank ?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Global Crossing. It still hurts

Is that the airline Frank ?

Fiber optic company that was counting assets as revenue and booking expenses as liability in order to show a profit

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Global Crossing. It still hurts

Is that the airline Frank ?

Fiber optic company that was counting assets as revenue and booking expenses as liability in order to show a profit

In the UK the audit companies do the accounts at a discount so that they can pick up the more lucrative consultancy work. They look past a lot of things that they should be flagging up.

Every scandal I can think of has involved accountants not doing their job and yet these same firms pick up millions of pounds of government work like it doesnt matter.

Its a huge scandal.

 

[Leo123]

Horse breeding.

 

[BigDave]

Investing in Target Corporation during the years i worked for them before being disabled.

 

[Pavel Svinchnik]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Several years ago, I had some extra cash in my self-managed IRA and decided to put it into something stable that returned a good dividend. I bought GE stock. About six months later, GE shares dropped by about a third, I decided to buy some more on the dip, and then it made an even worse dip, down to about 25% of what I had invested. "Well," I thought, "at least they still pay a good dividend." Shortly after that, they cut their dividend to one cent per share per quarter.

 

[MarathonMike]

For a stock, it was Sunbeam after Chainsaw Al Dunlap took over. For a 'What the heck was I thinking?' it was buying a 'breeding pair' of Ostriches that laid 2 eggs.

 

[justinacolmena]

Fannie Mae, a.k.a. Federal National Mortgage Association, a.k.a. FNMA

What failed is the idea that a homeowner should spend 30% of income to make payments on a 30-year mortgage.

It doesn't need to take 9 man-years of labor for one person to build a house. Foundation, framing, roofing, siding, drywall, windows and doors. People got carried away with indoor plumbing, electrical wiring, natural gas service, sewer and septic.

In medieval times, people joked about having servants to take out the chamber pot, which was a toilet without plumbing, basically a bucket that had to be emptied. Now they call plumbers to fix leaky pipes and clogged toilets, and take out fire insurance to cover the risks inherent in electrical wiring.

Newer and more advanced national building codes always come out on a three year rolling release schedule, but they are highly proprietary, copyrighted, trademarked, and patented, and by law cannot be read or discussed without paying $700–$1000+ for the book specific to your licensed trade or profession.

 

[Indeependent]

I stayed with AOL too long.

 

[danielpalos]

A film camera and accessories. I spent around a thousand dollars in the nineteen eighties. I sold it a few years ago for less than one hundred fifty dollars.

At least it wasn't a betamax.

 

[Blues Man]

My worst investment is the time I spend here on this board.

As soon as I can get out and start playing and listening to live music again I doubt I will be posting here anymore.

 

[Pavel Svinchnik]

A film camera and accessories. I spent around a thousand dollars in the nineteen eighties. I sold it a few years ago for less than one hundred fifty dollars.

At least it wasn't a betamax.

In the non-financial category, I once decided to buy a very complete but expensive world atlas to replace the old, out-of-date atlas that I'd been using for years. A few months later, the Soviet Union fell apart, producing a number of new countries and making my new book obsolete.

 

[justinacolmena]

My worst investment is the time I spend here on this board.

As soon as I can get out and start playing and listening to live music again I doubt I will be posting here anymore.

That's preposterous. I can't imagine how you have access to the internet to post on public forums, but not to the musical instruments or venues of the live music you say you enjoy.

 

[Picaro]

Nobody ever tells the world they backed a stinker but we have all done so at some time.

Mine was a travel company called Thomson back in the 90s.

It was an IPO, they were the UKs largest travel company and there were attractive shareholder discounts involved. I thought they were a safe bet but the shares sank on issue and stayed there for ever until they were bought out a few years later.

Ive generally avoided IPOs since then. Lets face it, they are offered to us because the founders generally cant see any more upside.

Tell us about your horror story.

Global Crossing. It still hurts

Is that the airline Frank ?

Fiber optic company that was counting assets as revenue and booking expenses as liability in order to show a profit

In the UK the audit companies do the accounts at a discount so that they can pick up the more lucrative consultancy work. They look past a lot of things that they should be flagging up.

Every scandal I can think of has involved accountants not doing their job and yet these same firms pick up millions of pounds of government work like it doesnt matter.

Its a huge scandal.

That would be all those laws and international agreements to loosen GAAP regulations and accounting standards in the late 1970's and 1980's, mostly revolving around ridiculous new 'standards' of what can be claimed as 'equities' and therefore leveraged no end. This is what led to all of the bubbles since the early 1980's, and why ratios of 30 to 1 are actually considered 'conservative' and 50 to 1 is actually legal to practice by publicly traded financial companies, and why real estate is nearly always at the root of collapses.