Do you own any shares?

Bretrick

Bretrick

SF VIP
Location
Perth Western Australia
I bought about 460 Hills Shares in December 2007 @ $5.40 at a cost of $2,500.
By December 2008 they were $2.98
December 2010, $2.00
December 2014, $1.20
December 2016, $0.38
December 2018, $0.20
December 2021, $0.02
My shares were worth $9.25
I gave up checking after that date. One thing I do know it that they never recovered.
In 2020, Hills revenue was $1 billion, by 2022 it recorded a net loss of $23.9 million.
In 2023 Hills went into administration.
February 2024 Hills was delisted by the Australian Stock Exchange and became privatised.
Through all this decimation of the Hills brand, those at the top were still taking home multi-million dollar pay packets.
This week, the US owner of Hills Limited has decided to drop the company from its portfolio and has Hills Holdings up for sale.
 
Last edited:
The small portion of my 401k that was allocated to the stock market during my working years consistently lost and was moved (without regrets) to a safer investment several years before retiring.

Although safer investments offer lower returns, I was satisfied with the balance I had upon retirement, which had grown substantially from interest and the portion that was matched by the employer.

Some of my co-workers who invested heavily in stock suffered substantial losses, witout having time to recoup, due to their ages.
 
Not myself, but I am forced to save for a pension. I just don't get that income and they invest it. Oh I just looked it up. They used to invest in mistreating pigs, but not anymore since too many people protested.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
Some of my co-workers who invested heavily in stock suffered substantial losses, witout having time to recoup, due to their ages.
Click to expand...
The reality is even after you retire you likely have twenty years of life left, that's a long time for investments to recoup a loss and continue to grow. The state of the market on retirement day isn't as important as a will funded and balanced portfolio.
 
I donā€™t own any individual stocks.

I do own a small bundle of conservative balanced mutual funds that make up about 80% of my retirement investments and keep about 20% in cash.

I donā€™t swing for the fences but I am able to keep up with inflation.

I may be a bit too heavy in cash but during a crisis/emergency cash is what it takes to get the job done.

There really is no right or wrong answer, do what you are comfortable with and what makes sense for you and your situation.
 
The only non-index individual company type shares I own currently are Berkshire Hathaway. I briefly owned some cruise line shares during the pandemic because they'd gone down to very attractive prices, but the cruise industry recovery was so slow I sold them later at a small loss (which was good at tax time).

My parents did very well with H&R Block stock, that would have been back in the 1970s I guess. I don't know what bad stocks they had, I think people tend to talk about their good choices instead of their disappointing ones.
 
C50 said:
The reality is even after you retire you likely have twenty years of life left, that's a long time for investments to recoup a loss and continue to grow. The state of the market on retirement day isn't as important as a will funded and balanced portfolio.
Click to expand...
We may or may not have twenty years left. One fellow associate I worked with retired and had two years left. Each investor must work with a plan that is within their comfort zone as well as advice delivered by investment counselors. I have no balanced portfolio. I have it all in CDs, and enough funds are there for my remaining years. I have little interest in how much may be left over for my distant successors who already have more money than they need.
 
Yes, we own both individual stocks plus mutual funds. Probably 60% of our investments are in stocks. Three of my largest individual stocks are Berkshire B, Home Depot, and Walmart. None of those are more than 2% of total, but by also owning SP500 and Total Stock Market mutual funds those three are also in there as well.

The market has been very kind to us since 2009.
 
I know we like to buy and hold, which usually works out to be beneficial. But at some point, it's better to cut your losses. There may be clues that a company is failing and its up to us to do our due diligence. Ironically, the stock that I lost money on was the one that was so highly touted by the "experts" both on T.V. financial broadcasts and in articles....Fit Bit.

I am skittish when it comes to purchasing individual stocks, so I only bought 45 shares in two separate lots. I guess the average cost was about $37 per share. The stock should have done well by all indicators including product sales, but it started failing, so I finally sold when it got down to about $12 and change per share. It went lower and lower after that. At one time I saw it was $5 a share. Next time I checked, the ticker symbol was no longer valid.
 
My company gave us company stock. I sold it when I retired. So I had some but now I dont.
I know just enough about stock investing to know Im not good at it.

Right now my money is in a bunch of American Funds recommended by my financial guy that are doing fine.
And a couple of annuities I had to take out to qualify as a community spouse. I also have cash.
When gets to a point I open another American Fund. I dont like all my money in one place so I have about ten funds now.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I guess the average cost was about $37 per share. The stock should have done well by all indicators including product sales, but it started failing, so I finally sold when it got down to about $12 and change per share. It went lower and lower after that. At one time I saw it was $5 a share. Next time I checked, the ticker symbol was no longer valid.
Click to expand...
It is so hard to know when to sell in a situation like that. I love my Fitbit so that is such a pity it failed. Per googling it had too much competition from Apple etc and went all the way down to the two dollar range before being bought by Google at $7.35 a share. I had been grumpy that Google bought Fitbit, but now that I've learned how poorly it was doing then I am glad Google bought it so that I can still use Fitbits.
 
The only individual shares that we own are in Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines International. Bought a hundred shares back during the pandemic to get the shareholder perks when cruising. Didn't really buy it for the investment - but as it turns out, we got it near the bottom during the pandemic and it's now worth almost 7 times what we paid.
 
HoneyNut said:
It is so hard to know when to sell in a situation like that. I love my Fitbit so that is such a pity it failed. Per googling it had too much competition from Apple etc and went all the way down to the two dollar range before being bought by Google at $7.35 a share. I had been grumpy that Google bought Fitbit, but now that I've learned how poorly it was doing then I am glad Google bought it so that I can still use Fitbits.
Click to expand...
How interesting that Google bought Fit Bit...I did not know that! It explains why the original ticker symbol was no longer recognized. Thank you for that information. Selling when something is down is a difficult decision to make, especially when the company is/was viewed as being solid. I did it one other time with a fund whose ticker symbol was GGNAX. It was another highly touted investment that did well at first. Then they changed their objectives and the price started to slip. That was years ago, now it's in the $12 range, less than half of the highest price I paid for some shares.

Between those two investments, it soured me on taking "expert" advice ever again. I sold GGNAX at a $1,500 loss and used the money from the sale to buy an up and coming Schwab dividend ETF. As of Friday's market, it's up by 115.59% over the average price I paid for shares, according to my Yahoo Finance app. That's considering the 3 for 1 split that took place over a year ago.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top