My worst investment ever....

The worst fund I invested in was the Dreyfus Short-term Income fund. I bought shares in 2001 and 2002 but in the next few years all the NAV and monthly yield did was drop. Not even the NAV runup in bond fund NAVs in mid-2003 did much. It completely defied any perceived inverse relationship between NAV and monthly yield. I sold it all out in 2005.
 
My first home we bought from a developer who went bust before even starting our home.
Another builder took over the project and we were offered a similar home for $10k more and had to wait about 3 years.
We took the deal we only broke even when we sold in a time that others really cashed out on their first home.
 
Nova said:
Nortel...enough said.
Click to expand...
Yeah, do we have to limit ourselves to just one?

In my case, it was when a retired admiral with a great professional/ethical reputation took over as Nortel's CEO. I was sure things were going to turn around.

Turns out he was good at cleaning out the stables, but once that was finished there was nothing left...
 
Surewhitey said:
Great place to live. Just don't invest here if you don't live here. Playa del Carmen I presume? We have lived here a few months now and see what you mentioned...
Click to expand...

Yes, that is exactly where it is. I still love going down there despite my condo disaster. It's still one of the prettiest and fun towns to vacation ever!:dance:
 
Sugar futures...don't ask! :(
 
Fidelity Magellen....

It does not seem like a bad investment, but when I made it I was going to invest in Compaq... which was a new company in Houston... but opening up an IRA brokerage account back in the early 80s had a few more hoops than I wanted to do and Fidelity was easy....

A few years later the difference in value was in the 100s of thousands....
 
I was a MCI-WorldCom investor.

I also had a REIT that I owned decline 75%. That was actually more money lost than the MCI-WorldCom investment, because the REIT was a relatively large position.
 
The highlight reel:
  • Spent $40,000 on a VW Jetta that didn't even have leather seats. Learned why brand-new cars are a ripoff.
  • "Invested" $11,000 in a dodgy charitable-donation/tax refund scheme. Money's gone, plus $3k in penalties to the tax man.
  • "Invested" $80,000 in a land banking deal in 2006 that was supposed to double our money in 5 years. Still waiting. I'd be glad to break even, at this point.
The good news is, at age 36, I'm much more jaded financially now, and know better than to trust any financial "experts."
 
Thinking about it, I've probably lost more money on my house than all of my other investments combined.

Hamlet said:
I was a MCI-WorldCom investor.

I also had a REIT that I owned decline 75%. That was actually more money lost than the MCI-WorldCom investment, because the REIT was a relatively large position.
Click to expand...
 
Ugh. Who started this ugly thread? I've had way too many. I once had a friend at work who asked me to let him know whenever I invested money so he could go short with it. Here are a few: CNXT ( 10K to 110K to zero; so much for buy and hold); WaMu 5K; soybean futures (several thousand lost by my broker's man in Chicago while I was out at sea, this after he talked me into it as a sure thing, plus his commission of course). Lessons learned. Don't buy any individual stock thinking it will all work out "long-term". Don't take a tip from a friend who knows about investing. Never, ever deal in a margin account, especially in commodities, and double especially using a full service broker. (do they still make these guys ?)
 
sunsnow said:
Enron bonds -- my broker/advisor said they were a sure bet. My $5000 went to $0. But it was small price to pay to learn not to trust brokers/advisors...
Click to expand...


I had some Enron stock. Looks like in this case stocks and bonds returned exactly the same.
 
Looks like I have a lot of company with WCOM stock...bought 500 shares at $15 and rode it all the way down to zero...
 
I gosh I have so many.
My friend's Turkish game company. This one cost me time also, turns out I am better playing games than designing them.
A local Hawaii company that started off making jammers for IED devices and ended up making heatsink for graphic cards,now dead and finally buried.
Recently I had the nerve to short Netflix at 250, because I was sure it was worth only 125. It went up and stuck with it, but the moment I had a modest profit 220 I bought it back. Now I would beat myself up if I sold at 125 even with the current stock price, but it is important when you buy or short a stock to have a target sell price.
Still these are risky investment which I knew in advance could turn out bad.

I think hands down my worse investment is my brilliant idea of taking out a home equity loan (at least it was from Pen Fed) at the end of 2007, and investing the money in those safe bank stock with dividend yield higher than the interest rate I was paying seemed brilliant in Jan 2008. Not nearly so smart a year later.
 
I bought shares of SIII (S3, a video chip maker in the '90s) at about $4/share, only to see them triple in less than a year...so I sold half.

Ok, that was the SMART part.

Then, the shares dropped from about $12 to about $8. I saw this as a "sale", so I bought more. That was the DUMB part.

A year later those shares were worth pennies.

Overall I ended up about even. :facepalm:
 
Dot Com stock: Muzicdepot
Recommendation by a trusted friend helped to override my common sense.
Also, they made me sign a form that I verified that I was a sophisticated investor.
I hope never to be sophisticasted again. $10k was taken as a complete tax loss 2 years later.
 
We had a WCOM 401k, so that was our biggest loss, but the worst investment was a a managed futures account with these folks. The guy that runs this outfit is all over Fox-Business News. I got out of this one without a loss..........

ACE Investment Strategists - About ACE
 
To get all philosophical, my worst investments (in $) were my best investments (in learning).

You gotta learn from your mistakes, and you gotta to learn to keep your mistakes manageable (diversify!). Better yet, keep your eyes/ears open and learn from other people's mistakes.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
To get all philosophical, my worst investments (in $) were my best investments (in learning).

You gotta learn from your mistakes, and you gotta to learn to keep your mistakes manageable (diversify!). Better yet, keep your eyes/ears open and learn from other people's mistakes.

-ERD50
Click to expand...

Maybe we should start a thread 'how much did my investing education cost me?'

Not sure I want to calculate the NPV for that one.
 
Lost 9k shorting QQQ when the Nasdaq was on tear from 4k to 4500. Of couse when it peaked at 5k a month later and imploded I was OUT of the short position.

"If you can't hang with the big dogs ... stay under the porch."
 
Getting into day trading back in my college days. Using the LightSpeed platform which used 4x leverage when it used to be legal (maybe it still is). Lost about $6K in a matter of a couple trades. Made myself sick.

Never went back, following the long road to FIRE. Used to honestly think I would pull in $20K/month back then with my awesome trading platform. What a stupid mistake.
 
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