My worst investment decision – How I turned $1,000 into $46.31.

My worst investment decision – How I turned $1,000 into $46.31.

Buying Urthecast shares and losing 95% of my investment.

What is the worst investment you’ve ever made?

Mine is quite simple, buying shares in Urthecast, based out of Vancouver, Canada.

At the time the company had begun to get some traction and notability in the tech startup world as a company that was doing some interesting and unique things. The plan was to put high definition cameras on the International Space Station (ISS) and stream down live or almost live video. I actually bought at a higher valuation than I should have but still felt it had a lot of potential. 

I wrote about buying the stock in my post from 2014.

"Earlier this month I made my first actual stock purchase, aside from taking part in my company's Employee Share Purchase Plan. If you are wondering which stock I purchased it was Vancouver based Urthecast Corp.: TSX:UR. "

March 2014 Net Worth Update +4.03%

I don’t want to go into the whole catastrophic failure that is this company, its management, and its business plan so let’s just say that I have some strong negative opinions about them.

Here’s a breakdown of the shares I purchased.

Date: February 2014, Purchased 421 shares at an avg cost of $2.37. 

Today on January 10, 2020, they are trading for $0.11.

This means that my total investment of $1,000 Canadian dollars is now worth $46.31.

This amounts to a total loss of 95.37% of my initial investment. I talked about the real risk of a situation like this happening when I purchased the shares as well.

 "I figure in the worst case scenario the company doesn't find a market and more or less goes out of business whereby I'd be out only $1,000 and have learned a valuable lesson about buying individual stocks."

Unfortunately, I turned out to be perfect in my risk assessment. I was willing to wager $1,000 on something with potential but that was all I was willing to risk because that was all I was okay with losing completely.

Just so I am being clear about this - I still hold these shares. Not because I think they will ever go up, but rather because I have already written off the entire investment in my mind and selling it for the last $46.31 seems pointless. I’d almost rather it slowly die off and lose everything than pull it out and think I saved anything. I took a calculated risk, the company failed, I lost all the money that I was willing to risk, and I’ve moved on.