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http://forum.thecontrarianinvestor.com/index.php?threads/gt-advanced-technologies-inc-gtat.69/page-501#post-25008 Link to a thread about stock pickers losing everything from the gt advanced technology bankruptcy yesterday. Some of these guys invested their life savings in a single stock that is now worthless. It is a harrowing read. The start of the thread is around two years ago. The stock went up 400% and then down to virtually zero
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Oct 8, 2014 06:20
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quote:I am dead meat. All my money is in GTAT and on my stocks I was doing margin. Since I owe way more than what's in there, I don't know what will happen to margin. Some people were smart, I believed so much in GTAT potential and lost all my savings including my 401K, IRA. At this point, I don't know what to do. I told my wife about this and she was upset and angry at my stupid move. But she still loves me. quote:May God look after you and your family. My entire family (wife, son and myself) were totally invested in GTAT. We lost everything and I am retired (my life's savings)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! quote:Its so painful...huge losses..all my savings are gone..It was purely management's irresponsibility that made all of us loose money here..I have two little kids and when I see thier face this morning, I can't stop crying...very pathetic... quote:Look at daughter, think in my head I'm sorry I just lost your college tuition. Your dads an rear end in a top hat Grouco fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 06:41
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At least his wife still loves him. That's got to be worth something, since they can have a dual income from SS during retirement. See? They're not totally screwed. 
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Oct 8, 2014 06:47
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  e: holy poo poo what is wrong with all these people
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Oct 8, 2014 06:48
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Velochis posted:http://forum.thecontrarianinvestor.com/index.php?threads/gt-advanced-technologies-inc-gtat.69/page-501#post-25008 I've almost been in that situation and can understand dumping in huge sums to ride a stock price wave... but gently caress life savings level into one thing that volatile is insane. Is there a certain group that seems to follow that trend? You see it pop up with the bitcoin guys going all in... just weird to get yourself into that situation.
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Oct 8, 2014 06:48
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That's...really depressing. I guess it's similar to the guys who drink their own company's koolaid enough to keep their savings in company stock, then the company goes under and they lose their savings and their job. This is more opportunistic of course, the psychological factors are a little different (more hubris in this case versus denial that your company will ever go under).
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Oct 8, 2014 06:50
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Multiple people in that thread are saying "I've lost it all. I'm gonna hold on till share price hits $X.00 and then get out." Which is probably bullshit because, hey, once it hits $X.00 it's only a matter of time til it hits double that price, so all in baby, ride the wave!
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Oct 8, 2014 06:55
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From the Yahoo Finance GTAT message board [quote=" barrettsfairplex] if i bought on margin and cannot afford to cover the call? what happens??? do they sell my shares? i cant afford to deposit $192,000 to cover what i lost on margin [/quote]
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Oct 8, 2014 07:24
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I can't reconcile not knowing what happens in a margin call with having 192k out on margin 
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Oct 8, 2014 07:31
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"Let's all buy internet stocks!" "Zoidy want to buy stock on margin."
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Oct 8, 2014 07:36
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Velochis posted:http://forum.thecontrarianinvestor.com/index.php?threads/gt-advanced-technologies-inc-gtat.69/page-501#post-25008 quote:This would be my last post on this forum. I am officially signing off. Thanks for all the contributions. I am still in shock and all the money is gone and I owe $107K in margin accounts. I have prepare my profit and loss for filing a case and here the final numbers. This is a lesson for everybody not to be greedy and stupid. These are just stocks, options of around $140K is not in there. 
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Oct 8, 2014 08:12
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melon cat posted:Holy hell. I nearly had a panic attack when reading those posts. Especially this one: FUUUUCCCCKKK. I'm bad with money and got a margin call once. I liquidated some shares and had a positive balance. I've never had a NET loss $890,000 before. A loving net loss which means he probably lost over $1m in a stupid trade.
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Oct 8, 2014 08:26
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Can't even feel sorry for those people, since they're just a bunch of greedy motherfuckers. I actually read the GT bankruptcy article on bbc and thought "wow didn't that company get some premium apple deal a while back? I bet a bunch of assholes just lost all their money".
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Oct 8, 2014 09:24
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I've just started doing my own investing, so I'm far from an investment guru. I just buy index funds. But since I know very little and still know how important diversification is, it makes it that much harder to understand how anyone could be invested 100% in any single company. I won't even invest 100% in a single country/market. It's like this was a game to these greedy sons of bitches. It's all a game until you lose your shirt.
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Oct 8, 2014 11:09
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Buy hi sell low Just like Warren Buffet-san would do
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Oct 8, 2014 12:54
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This is so much better than car-chat. I had to look up what this company was/why people put all their eggs in this basket and of course it's because of the Apple train. Remember guys, WWRBD? Mr. Boggle would buy and hold index funds.
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Oct 8, 2014 13:48
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Velochis posted:http://forum.thecontrarianinvestor.com/index.php?threads/gt-advanced-technologies-inc-gtat.69/page-501#post-25008 This is amazing. quote:
quote:
This is all well after the bankruptcy was announced and the press release posted in the thread in question.
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Oct 8, 2014 13:51
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I would love to hear these guys' opinions on 'personal responsibility' before this incident.
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Oct 8, 2014 13:55
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SmuglyDismissed posted:I would love to hear these guys' opinions on 'personal responsibility' before this incident. I'm sure their opinions both before and after can be summed up with "thanks, Obama!"
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Oct 8, 2014 14:26
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Oh my god that thread is a train wreck. It's so horrifying but i cant look away.
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Oct 8, 2014 14:32
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quote:Plenty of people have plenty of other investments in many stocks. Hmmm yes technology companies with big promises and little in the way of established revenue streams could never go tits-up "unexpectedly." http://www.thebubblebubble.com/historic-crashes/ TOTALLY and COMPLETELY unprecedented, yep.
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Oct 8, 2014 14:48
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GTAT opened up 45% today at $1.75 hope they didn't sell!
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Oct 8, 2014 14:53
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Aparently forum users StrayTrader and wisconsincheese claim to to own 0.5-1.% of the company.wisconsincheese on on 9/9 posted:Don't hate the player, hate the game. Anyway, I earned those shares, I bought most of them at around 3 before anybody even heard of sapphire screens, because I did my DD and understood their R&D efforts and that 2014-15 would likely lead to huge things and their technology would have value over time even if solar was in the tank. To invest basically all your net worth in GTAT at 3 when the stock is cratering and people are talking bankruptcies took some serious cojones but I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would kick myself forever if I didn't go all in. Might have been slightly reckless and against all known investment strategies but with big risks, comes big rewards. wisconsincheese on 9/9 posted:Yes, you only have to be right a couple of times and then you are good for life if you can stomach the risks. I find that it is hard to change your mindset, as to me the money is really just numbers and it is more about this game we all play, and seeing your research efforts and bets pay off and be rewarded and the high you get from that is what it is about for me. I am pretty cheap in general and will never spend the money I have right now, so I probably shouldn't bother to take any more risk and should sell all my GTAT but that is not who I am and will never be. When I buy a bond fund or a blue chip, it is like somebody punched me in the gut, as I feel any idiot can do that. I recently bought a boatload of HIMX at 6, and that is totally unnecessary and probably should play it safe, but it is hard to change who you are and what has got you to this point. StrayTrader on 10/2 posted:Yeah, TG sold 700K shares this year, while I and my related entities bought close to 700K shares this year. I drat well have a right to expect timely and transparent business updates from the company. (P.S. Welcome to capitalism.) StrayTrader on 10/2 posted:I give up. Many of you are being sheep, who believe you have no right to a voice in governance. I profoundly disagree. I will continue accumulating shares in accordance with my own investment convictions. But I will direct my voice to the company, and no longer here. I think we have found our winners!... Runner up admin, who was all in on GTAT: sleepyhead on 9/9 posted:Not really. Investing in index funds would be a dangerous game for me:
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Oct 8, 2014 14:56
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If he thinks the difference is 5 years, either he has like no assets right now anyway or he doesn't understand compounding interest properly. Also EVEN if that was the case, at age 60 when you're looking at having 15-25 years of life left, is 5 years more of working really "not a big deal?" Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 15:06
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SmuglyDismissed posted:Runner up admin, who was all in on GTAT: quote:Not really. Investing in index funds would be a dangerous game for me:
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Oct 8, 2014 15:10
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They're really dumb but holy poo poo they got played enron-style lmao:quote:Tom Gutierrez - President and CEO this was in august apparently
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Oct 8, 2014 15:13
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This could be a stupid question, but...is $400mil a lot for a whole company over the year? The only thing I have to go on really is the profit for the store I work in, which last I knew was around $2.5mil. I started skimming after the one from the guy who lost his mother's savings by defrauding her. That one made me sick to my stomach. E: also that idiot who thinks roulette has a pattern. Maybe he'll buy this bridge from me? BonerGhost fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 15:29
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gently caress I AM SO ANGRY AT THIS ANGRY I SAY!
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Oct 8, 2014 15:29
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NancyPants posted:This could be a stupid question, but...is $400mil a lot for a whole company over the year? The only thing I have to go on really is the profit for the store I work in, which last I knew was around $2.5mil. It's a lot of cash to have on hand when you really have no revenue streams yet. Which kind of made it a dubious claim IMO. To clarify: they're saying that they were expecting after paying employees, bonuses, all the bills, creditors, and other expenses, they were going to have $400 million cash in their accounts at the end of the year. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 15:33
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Nail Rat posted:It's a lot of cash to have on hand when you really have no revenue streams yet. Which kind of made it a dubious claim IMO. I guess what I'm really wondering is $400mil profit enough--in the land of make-believe where CEOs talk like your bum friend who owes you money and actually DO make good on their promises--to make such a stupid investment strategy look attractive despite the risk. Like, had it gone the way the CEO said it would, would these people be rolling in/on fat stacks (I am unsure of the proper preposition to use w/stacks tia)?
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Oct 8, 2014 15:57
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^^^ There was pretty much no chance that they would hit $400 mill by year end and there wouldn't be much left over after all the debt they owed to Apple. From what I'm reading, it looks like a small tech firm who negotiated a big deal at the expense of their IP and brutal funding conditions and then didn't make their ridiculous targets. How does the sort of loving moron who plunges everything they own into a single debt ridden manufacturer manage to wrangle together 6 figures worth of capital in the first place? What sort of moronic brokerage allows that much margin to be traded on a single stock by a single investor? Why the hell were these idiots thinking that GTAT would suddenly be a gold mine? Oh look, it's a ridiculously unstable company posted:The filing also says that GTAT had entered into a Prepayment Agreement where it would receive $578 million in four installments as advance payments for sapphire goods. GTAT would be required to repay the amount over a five year period by January 2020 as a credit to sapphire goods or a cash payment. Hot drat that thread is entertaining Cheeze Kuyeh fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 16:11
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I have no idea what buying on margin means. Someone smart here explain it as you would to a child.
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Oct 8, 2014 16:35
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MorgaineDax posted:I have no idea what buying on margin means. Someone smart here explain it as you would to a child. Someone essentially loans you money that you use to purchase more stock. The margin refers to the collateral (your holdings of the stock).
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Oct 8, 2014 16:45
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MorgaineDax posted:I have no idea what buying on margin means. Someone smart here explain it as you would to a child. Your stock broker lends you money to buy stocks, usually with the stock you buy and your other assets as collateral for the loan. The margin is the difference between the value of the stock you bought and the value of the loan, usually expressed as a percentage of the total value of the stock. If the percentage decreases (ex. the value of the stock falls below the value of what was loaned,) the broker can demand that you reduce the value of the loan (by repaying some or all of the loan) until that margin is restored (a margin call.) You have a short period of time to repay the broker before they liquidate whatever collateral secured the loan. edit: fixed. in a well actually fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 16:46
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That thread is an incredible find. I guess some people can just latch on to something and can believe in it without a tinge of doubt. Or maybe they were just blinded by greed.
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Oct 8, 2014 17:02
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quote:So I'm thinking of selling my wife's cat (all we we have left haha) and buying one share of each, and shorting them. I'm guessing he means car, but wow. Daytrade with fun money, kids, not your life savings!
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Oct 8, 2014 17:10
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Starting a forum thread about a single stock on a forum full of idiots seems like market manipulation to me. It would be a pretty good scam if the OP of that thread was secretly short the whole time.
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Oct 8, 2014 17:17
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NancyPants posted:E: also that idiot who thinks roulette has a pattern. Maybe he'll buy this bridge from me? Renegret posted:gently caress The roulette thing was my reworking of the dumb post that Smugly Dismissed quoted about picking hot stocks. Nobody actually said that thing about roulette. That said, it's absolutely the case that (a) dumping all your money into one hot stock is pretty equivalent to betting it all on black, and (b) if you go to Las Vegas you will absolutely see people recording roulette outcomes in little notebooks where they store thousands of events and try to find patterns. 
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Oct 8, 2014 18:02
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-06/apple-sapphire-supplier-breaksBloombergView posted:That's from a risk factor in GT Advanced Technologies's annual report. Basically the story is that Apple loaned GTAT a bunch of money -- call it $439 million1 -- so that GTAT could get to work producing sapphire to put into Apple products,2 and GTAT planned to pay that money back in the form of discounts on the sapphire over five years starting in 2015. But there was one tiny flaw in GTAT's plan, which was that Apple could demand all the money back, in cash, at any time, including right now, "under certain circumstances." And GTAT didn't have the money. So Apple loans GTAT half a billion dollars. Contract of loan states Apple can call them on this debt at any point given unpublicized circumstances. Apple calls. GTAT declares bankruptcy. Apple buys GTAT at a bargain price, apparently: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2545295-apple-announcing-apples-newest-acquisition-gt-advanced-technologies
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Oct 8, 2014 18:11
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moana posted:I'm guessing he means car I hope not because it's funnier if he actually means "cat." edit: Also, some guy posted at the end of page 530 that the admin and his supporters were hypocritical to be bashing people who say "told you so" because apparently for months they've been banning and deriding anyone who recommended caution instead of going all-in on the stock, and that had those dissenting voices been given a chance, some people may not have lost so much money to the echo chamber. What happened? That post got deleted 
Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 18:13
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