She had simply accumulated her shares by working many years and by participating in company savings plans. Her share holdings increased each time the stock split, which it has done four times since 1995. She had the good fortune and smarts to join one of the oldest high-tech companies in America, a primo bastion of intellectual capital. So it could be said that she had lost nearly half a million dollars between Labor Day and Christmas. Unfortunately, the Lottery Effect has also has a dark side.
Some stocks go down.
Some disappear altogether. Worse, some are facing forced retirements as the retailer grapples with its problems. Nor does a company's share price have to collapse to be a long-term threat to employee retirement security. All it has to do is underperform the market for a long time. This means millions of workers have essentially missed the greatest bull market in history, simply because their employers contributed company stock instead of cash that could be more broadly invested.