On Tuesday, news broke that Mason Hawkins and Southeastern Asset Management had sold off most of their General Motors Series B Convertible Senior Debentures (GBM/NYSE).
That news plus the increasing chances of GM filing some sort of bankruptcy lead me to raise the white flag of surrender and dump my GM bonds. I got out today (Wednesday) at $2.30.
I bought the bonds last September at $10.00 -- thinking they were "dirt cheap." I lost 77% on these, not factoring in the dividends.
As regular readers will recall, I switched my GM common stock stake into the bonds after losing 36.1% on the stock (factoring in dividends). What can I say? GM was the first recommendation on this blog upon launching the site in April 2005. Things were looking good back in the fall of 2007 when GM stock was north of $40. But it has been a disastrous investment, resulting in permanent loss of capital.
A status that almost certainly includes my two Japanese consumer lenders and Media General. I'm not planning on spending my retirement years in soup kitchens, though goodness knows there's still time for that.
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