Yeah I remember when it was say 35 cents (equal to $35 now) with...

Yeah I remember when it was say 35 cents (equal to $35 now) with my buying average around 44c (now $44) feeling annoyed when someone averred that it was going down to 5c (now $5). Every time I tried to sell the rug slid out from under me. It probably feels like that a bit now to the neophyte optimists.

I became resigned to only using SGH to offset capital gains from selling property. Sold some land last financial year for small profit so sold some SGH shares in late June. It wasn't paid until July 2nd but my accountant says that it is ok to offset the property gains from last year.

So in about 5 years will sell my more expensive property and by that time not only may the daily SGH-pain have subsided but the capital loss should cover a lot if not all of the gain.

A better plan would have been to sell at market price when it all started sliding further downhill and wear a relatively small loss.

But even those with 20:20 visioned crystal balls didn't do that as there was kind of a belief in the moral and ethical authority of S&G. How could people who professed to champion the underdog have contempt for the mum and dad investors? It seemed impossible. But there were some bad financial apples involved that ruined the whole barrel.