I thought I'd dive right in but I muffed it

[Mr._johngalt]

This is a new thread about the worst investment decision you ever made.
Could be anything. I have never made any so I will let someone else start it off

Elvis has left the building...................

 

[laurence]

My time in reading this post! BA-dump-Bump!

All my money went into high tech sector stocks from '99 to '01, 'nuff said.
My VW.....

 

[wildcat]

Sold USG a tad too early 

Avg cost about $5 now $45.85 hahaha

 

[unclemick]

Hindsight being a wonderful thing - the worst thing I did 1966-2004 was not taking the advice of Charles De Gaul.

Reading Ben Graham,AAII, Bogle, Bernstein and Tobias caused me to leave a lot of profits on the table.

There's a paradox here - had I not read - could have been worse.

As it was - made every investment mistake possible - except futures.

Still looking at PCRIX.

 

[HFWR]

CSCO at $80

 

[tryan]

Opened a futures account to SHORT the NASDAQ when in broke 4k ... chased all the way to 5k - loosing $9k. Then sat on the sidelines - licking my wounds - while it tanked to 2k.

Lesson learned : If you can't hang with the big dogs, stay under the porch.

 

[azanon]

This is a new thread about the worst investment decision you ever made.
Could be anything. I have never made any so I will let someone else start it off

I thought you said you have no stock holdings?

 

[ronin]

Back when I traded futures, I went long sugar  the day before the Oct. 87 market crash.  Blew through my stops, limit down on the open, for a few days...  like a elevator with a broken cable.  Lost a ton of money.  Thing of it was, I was right on the trade, really, really wrong on the timing.  After things settled down, the sugar market went smartly up as I had figured.  Wish I could say I had been thinking about shorting the S&P that day.

 

[Nords]

Loaded mutual funds.

We paid Fidelity's 2-3% "investment charges" for years on their funds like Equity-Income & Puritan. We thought "Vanguard" was something that led a military formation.

Shorting KMart stock at $77 against Eddie Lampert.

I'm holding a chunk of my personal portfolio in Nortel & Sun and, to a lesser extent, Overstock & Las Vegas Sands. Like Ronin I prefer to think of myself as substantially earlier to the party than the rest of the crowd...

 

[azanon]

We paid Fidelity's 2-3% "investment charges" for years on their funds like Equity-Income & Puritan.  We thought "Vanguard" was something that led a military formation.

I used to use Fidelity several years ago, but back then about half of their funds were not loaded so i just bought those.   I presume its still the same today?

(I just owned one fund, Fidelity Growth Company back when Robert Stanskey managed it;  back when he was actually good at picking stocks.  I hear he's managing Magellan today, and not doing such a great job either. I left Fidelity the day he left "my" fund.)

 

[Cut-Throat]

I 'fell in love' with a company stock that I worked for. I had too much Dough in it, when it corrected. Lost $175K in about a week.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I had too much Dough in it

Krispy Kreme?

 

[wildcat]

Lost $175K in about a week

Did you call in sick that week C-T?

 

[Martha]

Our 401(k) plan allows us to invest in most anything. We were also given a broker/investment advisor who coulld work with us and advise us on investment choices. Biggest mistake I ever made was working with that investment advisor, who, for example, bought me Enron right before the collapse of the company.

 

[TromboneAl]

Bull Sperm.

We were in our 20s, and just getting interested in investing. We signed up for a seminar by a financial planner, and were lured into a limited partnership with a company called "Sex Ratio Modification."

This company was working on a technique to take bull sperm and modify it so that there were more spermatazoa that would produce female calves.

The financial planner convinced us not to worry about our net worth being too low to be eligible for this.

We invested $5,000 and our return was a single check for 21 cents. That's right, the company actually mailed us a check for 21 cents.

We were pretty stupid, but on the other hand, we were in the 50% tax bracket, so we saved $2,500 in taxes.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I hope the check said "bull sperm" on it somewhere, and if so, that you kept it. Worth much more than 21c...

 

[wildcat]

First time I have ever heard of investing in bull sperm...maybe that should be in the commodity index.

 

[KB]

I had a friend who was a bull sperm collector. What a job !!!

 

[HFWR]

Dog poo, anchovy farts, bull sperm...

I love this site!

Bull semen collector?? Now there's a good reason to RE.

BTW, what's the "safe withdrawal rate"??

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Only problem with that is the bulls keep wanting to follow you home.

Reminds me of a comedy act I saw where the guy had to take his fru-fru pedigreed dog to the vet to give a sperm sample for artificial insemination. Now the dog wants to go to the vet all the time.

 

[moghopper]

I had a friend who was a bull sperm collector. What a job !!!

After enough time reading this board, I often feel like a BullS**t collector.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Keep collecting it.

We'll make more.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Did you call in sick that week C-T?

I was already retired when I took this hit. Before I read Four Pillars and before I joined this forum.

 

[wildcat]

Whoa nice recovery C-T

 

[charlie]

About the only thing worse than collecting bull sperm is installing it.

Cheers,

Charlie