I've been in the market a long time (+20 years) and plan to stay in for at least 20 years more. In my time, I have made some good choices and a few bad ones too. I'm not someone who can buy a lot at a time, but has monthly or quarterly made purchases. Some of my more risky stocks have sunk down to mere dollars each. Obviously my winners have far outpaced my losers, or I'd have stopped doing my own stock picks ages ago and in truth, I now mostly buy ETFs. But before ETFs were a thing, I bought stock and some of them are just dogs. I'm pretty sure most people have a few dog stocks in their portfolio.
Some of my bad stocks I managed to sell before it got too dire and buy other stocks with them. But some just went down so fast or I was kind of waiting to see what would happen with them. I held on, because when I picked them, at least at the time I thought they'd be companies worth investing in for the next 20-40 years (when I started, buying and selling stocks cost a pretty significant amount… things are different now).
What do you do with your loser stocks? Do you hold on to them and watch them die? Do you hold on and hope they will recoup their losses or get bought out by other companies? What helps you decide what you do with those stocks that have really fallen hard?
(While they probably could have been used to offset capital gains in a regular portfolio… they're all in my retirement account, and so gains and losses don't really matter until I retire which is still many years away. Maybe then my losers might be able to offest my capital gains a bit…)
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