I know it's difficult to get your head around - but until you actually sell them back for a loss, you haven't actually made one.
All we've got is something we could have paid less for if we'd known then what we know now.
I have trouble with that one too - and I guess we're not alone.
e.g. when the 1987 crash happened I had a whole bunch of insurance bonds - which are attractively designed bits of paper with words on them.
Other than how pretty they looked, they will still just bits of paper with words on them.
Not only did the world fall in on their sell-back value by between 40-60% the govt. was concerned about runs on the financial institutions and decided to freeze them for about 2 years (I think).
So, even if I wanted to, I couldn't cash them in.
Not that I wanted to - but If I had I would have consolidated my loss.
Some, (only a few), years later I was forced to cash them.
When I did they was worth about 4x what I'd paid for them.
Lesson learned.
And, I might add - people aren't just 'losing' money on SGH. I keep track on about 2 dozen favorite stocks and just about ALL of them are doing nothing with a lot of them worth less than they was last year.
SGH Price at posting:
26.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
