How does it feel to be poor again?
Don’t the stock market work fast! Earlier today, maybe even two hours ago, or less, it was reported on this website that surf clothing icon Billabong was riding a wave of unprecedented share price growth. From forty-ish cents to well over one dollar apiece.
Millions made etc. Obviously, the website was very quick to point out that it’d advised readers to spend everything they had on Billabong shares in the middle of 2015, when shares cost sixty cents.
It was like the glory days of the IPO when, soon after, shares hit sixteen-dollars and millionaires in Burleigh Heads were a dime a dozen. Well, as revealed in our comment pane minutes ago by BeachGrit reader Nick Carroll, who might be related to the two-time world surfing champion Tom Carroll and who is infinitely cleverer than the imbeciles who own this website, shares have actually swung hard the other way.
Down, down, down.
“Umm in case you didn’t notice, Bong did a stock merge in the interim. Your 5000 60c shares should now be 1000 $3 shares,” wrote Nick, “Except they’re not are they. No.”
To which I replied, quoting broadsheet newspaper The Australian.
“The firm has since made great strides in its rebuilding process, with its share price more than tripling from 45c at the time of the GE Capital agreement.”
To which Nick revealed the true tragedy behind the story, and behind the average man trying to play the market.
“The Australian has fucked up,” writes Nick. “In May 2015, being an idiot, I bought six thousand Billabong shares at 71c apiece, i.e. about $4300 worth. Some time later they conducted their stock consolidation and briefly I had twelve hundred shares worth around $3.60 each. I now have twelve hundred Billabong shares worth $1.23 each, about $1480 worth. This is not a threefold increase I am sad to say. Indeed it is almost the fucken opposite. Now there are analysts’ projections out there suggesting that in the next two years or so, Billabong will turn its current quite negative balance sheet into an impressive positive. Perhaps one day those shares will eventually regain their lost ground. But in the deathless words of Aragorn in The Two Towers’: “It is not this day!””
Were you, like me, briefly rich? Did you examine the price of prestige cars? Maybe a little house by the sea?
How do you feel now that the cold wind of poverty whistles through your threadbare t-shirt, now that the long and gloomy night gathers around you, the ghosts of hope haunting you?
Correct, recent move, I forgot. Let me cheat and edit my first comment. Cheers
Invest in promising startups, not former giants that can only wobble and fall into the ground since God Irons is dead, Parko can’t even walk straight, Occy is now a legend, Taj is retired, and Rasta has abandoned ship.
Italo can’t hold the castle forever FFS.
Startups is the way to go.
The Return of the King, not The Two Towers
Nay. It was in the scene where everyone was trapped in Helm’s Deep. Surely?? God how horrible, being a LOTR nerd.
Nah it’s at the Black Gate isn’t it?
One word…plastics.
Early 70’s Alfa Spiders.
66 Spider Dueto.
Oh yes…….
The Last Supper of convertibles.
Forex. The surf industry isnt where anyone should look to stocks.
A free lesson for dumb surfers…
It has been proven beyond doubt that a majority of professional stock pickers will under perform the market in the long run. You are deluded if you think as an amateur you are any different especially if you are a dumb surfer. Buy a low fee index fund and spend the spare time surfing.
…yes, wise…
I remember Warren Buffet saying when he had the urge to buy shares in an airline, he’d take a sedative, have a lie down ’til the urge went away – I think this might be good advice with regards to the surf fashion industry!
Indeed. Or perhaps just go for a surf as Ghost Coast suggests.
Even Warren Buffet recommends index funds these days. The theory is that collectively hundreds of analysts can price Billabong stocks better than individuals…go figure
Me buying Billabong shares hoping to become a millionaire, is similar to me buying a hypto krypto hoping to surf like Craig Anderson….
Oh you must photoshop something to illustrate!