As the disclaimer says…

…the value of your investment may go down as well as up.

At Royal Bank of Scotland’s AGM on May 30th, the chairman Sir Philip Hampton told investors:

I don’t believe that shareholders’ wealth is likely to be restored any time in my lifetime or some lifetimes beyond.

Which is surely the point? They invested in a bank whose management made some appalling judgement calls, didn’t keep a close enough eye on what the board where up to and saw the value of their investments destroyed.

Last time I checked we called that capitalism. The only reason that RBS shares have some negligible value left is that the previous government interfered with the natural process and kept the bank afloat with money stolen from the tax-payer.

No, I wasn’t an RBS shareholder until the government of the day decided to make me one. The only shares I own in the financial sector are in fellow bank Barclays (BARC) and the overwhelming majority of those are as a result of BARC’s takeover of Woolwich many moons back. My Woolwich shares came about because I was a saver with them at the time they floated. Thus my stake in BARC is almost pure profit.

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