"... bought mine with a long term view . they originally floated at $5 , whilst a $40 drop would be a bit of a shock ..."
I've seen this sort of statement a lot throughout HC, but particularly on the CBA threads. It's understandable that an investor, when experiencing a significant fall in each of two stocks, may not be as disappointed with the stock on which they are still showing a good profit (as against another which has continued to disappoint).
Nevertheless, the capital lost is the same on each. The investment decision made at the higher price last week (in this case not to do anything) has proved to be the wrong one. That applies to long term investors as well as all the others.
For the same sorts of reasons as espoused by Bob and Joffrey, I divested a lot of my CBA at $127.9 last year, and as investment decisions go, it was a shocker. If it drops $40 next week, I'll probably feel a lot better, and your "bit of a shock" will be about a 25% drop ... which would have been avoidable. But that doesn't mean you or I were right or wrong ... we just didn't have all the data yet. Heh, heh.
CBA Price at posting:
$162.67 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)