I know someone who had part of their pension in CS stocks. They were already sad at the beginning of the year (80% loss?) now. what’s that? 99% loss? Well I’m not sure exactly when they stopped working, but if they accumulated stocks for 25 years, it’s probably near 95%
We all do. 
Hope that their “part” was not “most”.
I’m afraid to ask tbh.
I don’t want to tease anyone.
Just a reminder that single stocks are very very risky.
8 Likes
This thread is refraining me from buying French bank that looks discounted at the moment 
That’s why I bought only 340 shares.
But what about the people in the linked article?
2 Likes
„ Der 59-jährige T. J. sorgt sich um seine Pension: «Ich habe mein Erspartes aus einem Bankkonto und aus einer Hypothek auf die vorher abbezahlte Eigentumswohnung in 61’000 CS-Aktien angelegt. Nach Ablauf der Festhypothek werde ich mit 500’000 Franken Verlust und höheren Hypothekarzinsen dastehen. Nichts mit sorgenfreiem Alter, es ist absolut verschi****!», klagt er. “
Did I get this right? He had no mortgage, increased it for liquidity and invested it all in CS stocks? Now he lost at least 0.5 million?
Play stupid games - win stupid prizes 
4 Likes
Well, to be fair, that coffee didn’t pay much long term dividends past the short term high either.
VWRL in CHF lost 1.87% (dividends reinvested) over the same period (November 22 2022 to today). Though T.J. seems to have bought his CS shares at the end of 2021, so he would have experienced roughly a 15% drop in VWRL. He’d still be down roughly 82K.
The morale, for me, is do your risk assessment, invest in a way that suits it, do your best to know the risks of what you invest in.
The Chihuahua of Wall Street!
3 Likes
every single step here is a book example of how not to invest (close to retirement, on debt, on a single stock, not knowing the circumstances).
he has probably heard it from someone on the street that the CS stock is way below book value…
6 Likes
This reminds of what happened in Portugal with Banco Espirito Santo (BES), the largest bank and a conglomarate that had his fingers in every industry in Portugal (transportation, health care and even a couple of politicians).
It colapsed during the weekend but on Friday morning, the president said that the bank was solid and it would no collapse.
→ A lot of people bought stocks and bonds but ended up losing everything when the bank eventually collapsed and this kind of news articles were written as well.
Having worked in an Investment Bank and having talked with some clients and people that were working at that time, it’s mostly bullshit. They were greedy and wanted to double their money quickly because the stock was really cheap.
Eventually they formed associations focused on suing everyone to try and get something back which never went anywhere.
If you can’t take the risk of a stock going to 0 then don’t buy it.
4 Likes