What have been your worst investments in the stock market? Did you learn anything?

[Valuegrowth]

Thanks JBmurc.

For me it was over diversification. Not keeping a strategy, records and not monitoring . First of all, I could have avoided my mistake if I had done home work before doing anything.Then again I got temptation and bought another unviable investment. It look like it’s going to go out of business sooner than later. It’s really have become a long term investment. Picking a weak company for a long term is a great mistake. This mistake led me to pick low debt strong balance sheet companies. These companies not only can ride out difficult times easily but also can acquire weak competitors. More than that they don’t need to raise capital or they can get internally or can borrow money from banks easily.

I still can’t believe the end of Dominion Finance(DF). When I tried to buy some debentures, my investment adviser suggested me to invest in debentures of Provincial Finance. Instead I went with debentures of DF after seeing strength of their balance sheet. If I am correct Provincial Finance went to receivership before DF. When the sector were falling-apart one by one, fortunately, I took my money out of debentures, except some stocks. Another good lesson for me.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...UY6P36AEOHKFY/

yeah heaps(but then I've held 100+ different spec companies over the years always going get a few dogs.. esp doing my earlier trading days ... taking stupid risks putting far to much of the portfolio into only a couple of high-risk stocks ..not being diverse enough ...

Two that come to mind CVR ... Gold producer in KAZ... that the MD was telling me over the phone how they were meeting Gold Production targets to next minute belly up out of capital .... VIL I think it was another cracking disaster .. discovered oil went back for the appraisal oil GONE>>>> ..