About a year ago I decided to venture into investing in the stock market. A couple of thousand was all I could afford; not many 'marketable parcels' in that. Luckily there's a solution for small fry like me: custodial brokers that allow you to invest as little as $100 at a time. Brokerage per share is worse, but a least you can buy in. I hoped that with judicious choices and a bit of luck my small investments could grow, even if just a little. I researched things, tried to find advice that made sense, but really I don't know much, so it's a bit of a gamble...
Anyway I ended up buying $200 parcels of things like AGY, CXO, CNB, RNU, an actual 'marketable parcel' of ARU ("Son of Fortescue"!) and a few others. But the timing was terrible, pretty much everything has gone south since I bought in with 50% to 80% losses on some of these. No complaints here, a learning experience...
By the time I discovered PEN, $100 was the max I felt I could put up as I have lost much of what I started with. So I bought 800 shares at 12.5c back in September. Every other stock I have that has gone the SPP route has basically plunged below the offer price, but I satisfied myself that the PEN offer could actually have an upside for me that would see me able to finally have a good parcel (for me) of a stock that is really going somewhere, and maybe even cover my other losses. I found $1000 and put in my bid. I didn't expect to be handed a $5K or $10K windfall, but you know if I ended up with a scaled-back $200 or $300 worth of shares I'd have been stoked.
But to now find that my small investment is viewed with such disdain, that the risk I take with my money to invest in this stock entitles me to absolutely nothing at all while somebody with merely 51 shares more than I have can get the maximum entitlement available to the largest shareholder here is so beyond unfair I can't find words for it. I can't believe a board is able to completely disqualify very small investors in such a way. Is there no requirement for them to act in the interests of ALL investors? I'm allowed to have a stake that can be diluted but I'm denied the opportunity to increase it that has been afforded to everybody else (except other 'insignificant' people like me).
The message is clear: if you're a little guy like me, by all means put up your money, take your losses, cop it on the chin. They'll buy you out when you're broke and can't hang on any more, but don't ever expect to be treated fairly. You don't count.
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