Sad but true. If people are so stupid as to drop ÂŁ150k (and that is all their savings) into one project period then they deserve what comes to them. Unless it is literally ÂŁ150k on a house you are being wilfully reckless and the government is not here to save every idiot no matter how well intentioned or how much they lost.
There could be an argument that the UK Government could step in with a loan to protect jobs in the region, future tax revenues, etc. However, in the current climate I canât see this being a priority for them.
If I had to guess, Iâd say that either a big Australian mining company or possibly a Chinese state linked company will step in at the last possible minute and pick up the company for pennies on the pound. Iâm sorry to say it, but I really donât see this ending well for the existing shareholders. 
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Itâs definitely does not look good. This is actually the most risky stock on my portfolio and I am glad that I did not invest so much. Like everyone else I am hoping that someone would step in and turn everything around.
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The company still has a market cap of ~ÂŁ330M and cash of ÂŁ180M. I still think the valuation is too high.
You know your stocks doing badly when they talk about it on the news on the drive home
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I wonder what Norway thinks.
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Iâm genuinely saddened by the comments on here labelling people as âstupidâ. A lot of elderly men and women who live locally have poured their savings and pensions into this project. Theyâve tried to support a local project and may end up losing everything. That doesnât make them stupid. It means they didnât seek or receive good financial advice. For many it will have been their first and only foray into the investment arena.
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I donât mean to disrespect anyone, but what you describe here is the exact definition of the word stupid according to dictionaries. So yeah, it kinda is. Heartbreaking, but stupid.
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I call it more a gamble.
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From the LSE board a surprising number of long term holders appear to be buying more to âaverage downâ. A tactic I could never understand.
Iâm pondering the same. The slightest positive news and Iâll be jumping on some cheap shares.
Come on man, letâs just be honest.
These people didnât invest out of altruism. If they wanted to do that, they would effectively donate the money. The invested out of an expectation for growth. A lot of them expecting huge growth, investing in an early stage miner. Hence the greed part.
The stupidity part is that even the worldâs worst financial advisor will advise you to diversify. If you donât know anything about investing, and you still go on to invest everything you have into a single company, then you are greedy and stupid (stupid for not doing your part to work even a tiny bit to understand basics of investing and greedy for expecting that with zero work whatsoever, you are going to have champagne wishes and caviar dreams from now on).
If they knew even the basics (we are talking about people with SIPPs, so Iâm assuming at least basic investing competence) and still decided to go all in in one project, they made a conscious decision to go with a highly concentrated portfolio. These do have an advantage (in that if the companyâs shares shoot up in value, they effectively become extremely wealthy immediately, compared to the slow process of a more diversified portfolio), but they do come with way more risk.
They took huge risks - they knew what they did. The risk materialised, and the payoff disappeared. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
I would support government intervention to bail them out, if they were scammed or defrauded somehow. But they werenât. They just made a very very poor investing decision.
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Very true - tend to stay clear of them. and also the old interactive investors one
Averaging down makes sense when your assessment of the stock is that the company is still sound, theyâve just had a blip - perhaps an outside event has caused a temporary effect that will get sorted out over time. (ETA: obviously, it does still carry some risk; even if thereâs objectively a 90% chance youâll make gains over time, you could still end up in that other 10% where the stock doesnât recover as expected. But at least youâd be unlucky rather than stupid.)
But the judgment should be made on actual evidence of the soundness of the company. Thatâs not the case with Sirius. Theyâve had to cancel their bond, the government wonât help them, and theyâve only enough money to run for another six months. Their best case for being saved is to find a new investor who can pump a large amount of cash in - but any said investor will likely want favourable terms, meaning shares will be diluted, or even worth nothing. And even after all that, theyâre still a long way off doing any actual mining at all!
Sadly I suspect people who are âaveraging downâ their Sirius stock are doing so with their hearts and not their heads. They donât want to admit theyâve made a bad investment, so theyâre kidding themselves that if they throw a little more money in, hold out a little longer, then itâll all come good. 
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I personally only have spare change invested. I will bump it up to 1500 shares if it looks like something might happen. I really donât mind losing this money. I have a lot of other strong long term investments. I donât see any issue in betting on struggling companies.
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That means youâre not targeted by the posts above. You clearly did not dump your whole wealth into this mine.
There is now even a petition to the government about the situation 
Provide Sirius minerals with full Loan Guarantee from HM treasury. - Petitions
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ÂŁ150k on Sirius Minerals? 
That person needs some serious minerals right now - Ouch that hurt!
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Hi Dan, I am sure you are a lovely person and this is in no way a dig at what you have said. Stupid is defined as âhaving or showing a great lack of intelligence or common senseâ. If someone places their life savings into a single investment putting their future on the line they are quite simply stupid. It need be nothing more than a factual statement. Whether they are elderly, male, female, etc., is irrelevant.
Now it may be that comments are simply not needed. It might be that even mentioning these people is not relevant to the discussion. Absolutely.
But let us be clear of a couple of things. It was not altruism it was greed. And if this is true âFor many it will have been their first and only foray into the investment arenaâ then âpoured their savings and pensions into this projectâ is pretty close to an exact definition of stupid.
I understand it upsets you somewhat and the comments above are neither personal nor directed at any individual however it is clearly true.
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Iâm still signing this petition. I want my gains !
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