I am a beginner in investing and my question might sound stupid. I would like to know if I purchased shares in the stock market and the value of it drops or even goes to worthless, would I lose any more money than what I invested? Meaning would I lose money that I did not put into that stock, or would I just have a worthless stock? Please explain in detail because I am a newbie when it comes to investing. Thank you and God bless!

If you’re just buying stock then your loss is limited to what you paid for that stock. If you shorted a stock or a call option then you could lose an unlimited amount of money if the stock went up. If you shorted a put option, you could be forced into buying stock at a given price even if it’s higher than the market price. If you bought a call option, you could wind up having to pay more money to cash in on what you’ve made when the stock goes up if you’ve waited too long.

In general, as long as you do nothing fancy, you won’t lose any more money than what you paid for the stock. But there are a lot of variations that could expose you to more risk, limit your risk or remove risk altogether. For example if you bought a put option and your stock then you’re guaranteeing a minimum sell price for your stock and hence limiting how much you can lose if the stock goes down

Filed under: Stock Investing

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