NYT: The retirement accounts of millions of Americans have long contained shares of stalwart companies like General Electric, Ford and Coca-Cola. Today, they are likely to include riskier private stocks from Silicon Valley start-ups like Uber, Airbnb and Pinterest.
Ouch, not like we haven’t seen this Dot-Com mess before.
Investment fools, their money and stocks are soon separated.
The last silly.con valley bust..
1- Pets.com’s business model wasn’t sustainable. Declared bankruptcy, The company lost $147 million in the first nine months of 2000,
2-Webvan.com raised $375 million, shares traded at around $30 and the company was valued at $1.2 billion.
By the time the company announced it would close up shop in July 2001, Webvan’s stock fell to just 6 cents a share. Webvan laid off 2,000 employees when it failed.
3- eToys.com shares hit a high of $84.35 in October 1999, who could have guessed that just 16 months later, the company would warn investors that its stock was “worthless?”
4-When Yahoo bought GeoCities for $3.6 billion in January 1999, it was widely considered a coup. At the point of sale, Yahoo traded at $368 and GeoCities shares sold at $117.
Yahoo closed down GeoCities 8 months later, Oct. 26.
5- theGlobe.com’s
The company raised $27.9 million in its IPO, and its market cap was valued at $842 million. But less than two years later, in August 2001, theGlobe.com’s stock was delisted by the Nasdaq stock exchange for failing to stay above $1 per share.
6-Go.com,
In January 2001, Disney announced it would shut down Go.com, and the company took a write-off of $790 million.
7-Flooz.com sold online currency that could be used instead of credit cards. After users bought enough Flooz, they could spend it at participating online stores like Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, Outpost.com and Restoration Hardware.
Despite the stupidity of its concept, Flooz.com raised $35 million from investors. Corporate partners Cisco and Delta Air Lines used Flooz for corporate gifts.
And despite spending $8 million on an ad campaign featuring Whoopi Goldberg,
Flooz went bankrupt in August 2001,
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http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HTlSJ3c.jpg
What about “green energy”? Have pension funds been invested in that worldwide scam?
Shares in any company are a gamble. Twenty years ago, people’s pensions could have contained such stalwart companies as Enron, GM, WorldCom/MCI, Tyco, Adelphia, and TWA. Coca-cola is just one stupid control-freak, health-nut politician away from taking a financial beating. Ford could very well have ended up the same as GM, relying on the US government to keep it going. And I don’t know how much money GE has dumped into wind and solar, but my guess is there’s a great big liability on their books waiting to sink them. As long as the portfolio is properly diversified, company failings shouldn’t be an issue. But investing only in one sector is a very bad idea.
Good question.
I wonder if many pension funds,such as Provincial Teacher’s PF’s and Big Union PF’s have invested heavily in this field,thus their rabid propaganda campaign pro-green energy.
If you follow the money,you usually find the bitter truth.