Bag Holder

What Is a Bag Holder?

A bag holder is a casual term used to depict an investor who holds a position in a security that declines in value until it slides into worthlessness. As a rule, the bag holder obstinately holds their holding for an extended period, during which time the value of the investment goes to zero.

Figuring out Bag Holders

As per the website Urban Dictionary, the term "bag holder" hails from the Great Depression, where individuals on soup lines held potato bags filled with their main belongings. From that point forward, the term has arisen as part of advanced investment dictionary. A blogger who composes on the subject of penny stock investing once joked about starting a support group called "Bag Holders Anonymous."

A bag holder alludes to an investor who emblematically holds a "bag of stock" that has become worthless after some time. Assume an investor purchases 100 shares of a recently public technology fire up. Albeit the share price to begin with ascends during the initial public offering (IPO), it rapidly begins dropping after analysts start scrutinizing the veracity of the business model.

Subsequent poor earnings reports signal that the company is battling, and the stock price thusly dives further. An investor who is determined to hang onto the stock, notwithstanding this dismal sequence of events, is a bag holder.

Bag holders frequently capitulate to the disposition effect or sunk cost fallacy, which makes them stick to their positions for unreasonably long periods.

Loss Aversion and the Disposition Effect

There are several justifications for why an investor could hold on to failing to meet expectations securities. As far as one might be concerned, the investor may totally neglect their portfolio, and just be unaware of a stock's declining value.

All things considered, an investor will hold onto a position since selling it means recognizing a poor investment decision in any case. And afterward, there is the phenomenon known as the disposition effect, where investors will generally rashly sell shares of a security whose price increments, while tenaciously holding investments that drop in value. Basically stated, investors mentally disdain losing more than they appreciate winning, so they subsequently grip to the hope that their losing positions will bounce back.

This phenomenon connects with the prospect theory, where people pursue choices in view of perceived gains, as opposed to perceived losses. This theory is shown by the model that individuals like to receive $50, instead of be given $100 and lose half of that amount, even however the two cases at last net them $50.

In another model, people decline to stay at work past 40 hours since they might cause higher taxes. Despite the fact that they eventually stand to gain, the active funds increasingly pose a threat to them.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

The sunk cost fallacy is another justification for why an investor might turn into a bag holder. Sunk costs are unrecoverable expenses that have proactively happened.

Assume an investor purchased 100 shares of stock at $10 per share, in a transaction valued at $1,000. If the stock tumbles to $3 per share, the market value of the holding is presently just $300. Thusly, the $700 loss is viewed as a sunk cost. Numerous investors are enticed to hold on until the stock slingshots back up to $1,000 to recover their investment, yet the losses have proactively turned into a sunk cost and ought to be viewed as permanent.

At last, numerous investors hold on to a stock for a really long time in light of the fact that the drop in value is a unrealized loss that isn't reflected in their genuine accounting until the sale is complete. This holding on basically defers the inescapable from occurring.

Special Considerations

All things being equal, there are a couple of approaches to determining whether a stock is a logical bag holder candidate. For instance, assuming that a company is cyclical, where its share price will in general vary along with disturbances in the economy, then, at that point, there is a good chance that riding out tough situations might bring about a share price turnaround.

In any case, on the off chance that a company's fundamentals are disabled, the share price might in all likelihood won't ever recuperate. Thusly, a stock's sector may signal its chances for outflanking, over the long haul.

Features

• A bag holder is shoptalk for an investor who holds onto poorly-performing investments, trusting they will rebound whenever chances are that they will not.
• There are mental inspirations driving bag-holding behavior: to be specific, investors will generally focus on curing losses, more than they center around acknowledging gains.
• Bag holders will generally lose money by being the last owners of a weak investment.