A $4,000 loss!

Oh man, I just got a check in the mail from my poor performing stock. Yes, the only one I have ever owned. The one that I bought at an initial investment of $4,200 back in 2000, the year before all the dot.com companies began to fall. My friend at the time let me in on friends and family IPO shares. At the time being a single teacher I actually had around 10,000 in savings and was considering putting almost all I had into. After all, my friend who worked for the company was sure that it would double quickly. He and I were both young and naive. Thankfully I listened to an older friend who had been around these IPO's before. He told me to just invest half of what I had...to invest what I could afford to loose.

Well, my older friend was right. It was the biggest loss I have ever had in my life so far. After paying an initial price of $21 a share it fell hard and was down to .57 cents a share at one point. Today, after 8 years they sent me a little check for $190 and told me I was cashed out due to a merger. I had always held onto those shares just in case they ever came back to anywhere near their orginal value. Unfortunately for me they never did! I guess on the positive side I will get to write 4,000 off on my taxes next year! I wonder how much that will actually help???