Bad Investments

[meatpile]

Everybody's done it. Here's mine:

Vanguard US Growth. OUCH. Sold a little over a year ago, invested monthly for 4 years from about 1997 to 2002. OUCH.

Quaker Oats. Bought in 1994 for the sole purpose of making a quick buck on rumors they were going to be bought by pepsi. They bought Snapple for way too much to avoid the buyout, the stock dumped, I sold. A cheap stock market lesson at a young age.

'Dog of the Dow', aka 'The Foolish Four', which was a theory that if you bought the top yielding 4 or 5 compnents of the DOW, that you'd beat the S&P soundly b/c that what had happened for like a billion years on the past. A great lesson in data mining.

[meatpile]

I guess I'm the only one. :imagestor

[Southern_Yankee]

i forget how much dad poured into Johnson & Wales for me...

[Angie]

I guess I'm the only one. :imagestor


Nope..I was in WCOM quite heavily..that was one investment where my research did no good whatsoever, since their financials were fraudulent...I've got a lot more, but it's more fun to tout success than dwell on the painful ones.

[Bootay]

My only real loser was Corning, and I was given the stock when it was at it's peak at 100 or so, dropped to 2... that was fun.

Amazingly, I think I've made money on everything else (well, let's not count stock options that I had to let expire). Sometimes FAR less than I should have when a lucky pick gets REALLY lucky but I cashed early, but still positive.

Of course, it helps when you just dump money into a lifecycle fund. These babies make following the standard good advice of money magnates everywhere automatic. You just dump money into a fund with very low fees that is managed according to the date you expect to retire and draw on it - very aggressive when it's 30 years to target, very conservative at the end. So mine is aimed at 2040, and is doing a consistent 10% for the last 5+ years, the ones closing in 2020 are doing more like 7%.

[VA49er]

I dated the same girl throughout college. When I think of the missed opportunities now, damn. Does that count?

[Trace]

Not so much a bad investment but a caustionary tale.

Dad, bless his heart, decided to "gift" me a nice sum of his old company stock as a wedding present.

Well I got my first lesson in gifting. When I sold some of the stock for a down payment on our first house I found out about cost basis. Turns out since it was gifted I had to take HIS basis on the stock and not the price it was gifted. His basis was .50. I sold the stock at $35. Capital gains out the ass.

I am now just holding the remainder for the 1.30 dividend and not touching the stock.

[Freakshow]

I have more than I can even begin to mention...Never put a bunch into them, but (especially when I was younger), I used to love to buy teh speculative stuff. Probably about even on those...lost what I made.

[Savio]

Ciena :thud:

[slydevl]

Siebels Bruce Insurance before Hurricane Andrew

[Freakshow]

Siebels Bruce Insurance before Hurricane Andrew

Ouch!

[The_professor]

http://augustasports.com/images/headlines/112699/carruth_shooting.jpg

[dig-it]

Wife #1.
Wife #2.

[Bootay]

Brand new mini-van.

[twentybelow0]

Fuel System Solutions - (Formerly IMPCO)alternative fuel systems, engines, valves etc. Made a little on them in the spring came back after it dropped and made the mistake of holding on after a reverse 2:1 split when they changed their name.

Newmarket Corp - started looking into it back in May, they make detergents, chemicals for gas, oil, etc. With gas going up at the time it got my attention. Didn't buy it. Didn't research enough. A subsidairy opened their newest plant and the stock went from 45 to 65 in a matter of a few weeks.

[The_professor]

Wife #1.
Wife #2.



lol

[meatpile]

Brand new mini-van.

OLL.

Which one? We can spend the weekend with Tom and make them sleepers.

[Bootay]

OLL.

Which one? We can spend the weekend with Tom and make them sleepers.

Odyssey, what else? 2007 EX-L, letting Tom put in the DVD entertainment/NAV system (factory those babies are about $4k, I can have Pimp My Ride style shit for that money...).

Jet Black and EVIL looking. I need to mount a skull and put some bullet holes in it.

[Savio]

Odyssey, what else? 2007 EX-L, letting Tom put in the DVD entertainment/NAV system (factory those babies are about $4k, I can have Pimp My Ride style shit for that money...).

Jet Black and EVIL looking. I need to mount a skull and put some bullet holes in it.


Honda voice activated navigation are the shit though...

[meatpile]

I completely cheapskated ours. No leather, no nav or anything. I think it was like $23k out the door.

I was paying cash, wish makes it seem more extravagant to pay thousands for leather and NAV. That said, I like that shit and Janelle has complained about the non-leather.

I had a '96 accord with leather, and the leather seemed weak compared to BMW leather, which is why I didn't go there for Janelle's. Turns out the 'new' leather is kinda nice. Oh well. In 10 years when we get a new one, leather.

Swing it by and we'll be minivan nerds. Janelle's car has not had one thing go wrong in over 2 years- NOTHING. No turn signal, rattle, nothing. I don't even know where the dealer is located.

How much is Tom charging you for the NAV and DVD? Or just DVD?

I need to call him. Janelle wants the DVD.....we don't need the NAV.

[Bootay]

I completely cheapskated ours. No leather, no nav or anything. I think it was like $23k out the door.

I was paying cash, wish makes it seem more extravagant to pay thousands for leather and NAV. That said, I like that shit and Janelle has complained about the non-leather.

I had a '96 accord with leather, and the leather seemed weak compared to BMW leather, which is why I didn't go there for Janelle's. Turns out the 'new' leather is kinda nice. Oh well. In 10 years when we get a new one, leather.

Swing it by and we'll be minivan nerds. Janelle's car has not had one thing go wrong in over 2 years- NOTHING. No turn signal, rattle, nothing. I don't even know where the dealer is located.

How much is Tom charging you for the NAV and DVD? Or just DVD?

I need to call him. Janelle wants the DVD.....we don't need the NAV.

You can MAC out the DVD for $1500 or so, and that's not Tom pricing. That's replacing your headrests with new ones that have DVD screens mounted in them, and 2 DVD players mounted in the console. Wireless headphones and the lot for the kids. For $1200 or so, you can do a ceiling console just like stock with a single DVD player up front in your console (or one in the ceiling with the screen), it'll play games and all kinds of stuff that stock won't do, and you can get it much larger than stock (7", you could do 10"+ if you wanted).

I'm hoping Tom can come in <$1000 for a SWEET setup, installed. And I'm hoping NAV can come in for <$1000 as well, but that's harder as there's going to be some custom plastic housing fabrication required, I'll bet...

[meatpile]

Just curious -

Couldn't you buy 3 portable DVD players so each kid could watch their own DVDs and also be able to use them out of the car for less than that?

[Bootay]

Just curious -

Couldn't you buy 3 portable DVD players so each kid could watch their own DVDs and also be able to use them out of the car for less than that?

Yep, and then I'd have to worry about them holding them/tossing them/dropping them/forgetting them. It's FAR easier to hook it into the car permanently - I have a DVD player at home and a portable player for plane rides.

[PantherMills]

Metromedia Fiber Network- MFN

Finally jumped on the tech bubble for 4k of this stock sometime around the year 2000. Up to 10k in 6 months. A year later, it was worth about 2 cents. :notworthy