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Ocado (LSE: OCDO) shares have to go down as my worst buy. Not just because they’ve performed so badly, but because my thinking was wrong from the start.
When I bought the grocery delivery and robot tech warehouse specialist, the stock had already fallen 85% in five years. I convinced myself that made it a bargain. In reality, I’d grabbed the ultimate FTSE 100 falling knife, which is now nestled in the FTSE 250 and making my Self-Invested Personal Pension look messy.
There was a moment of hope when the shares spiked 50% in July, trimming my paper loss to around 10%. The trigger was a swing to a £611.8m first-half statutory profit on 17 July, against a £153.3m loss the year before.
Much of that came from a one-off accounting gain linked to Ocado Retail, but revenues did climb 13.2% to £674m. I even dared to think the shares might turn the corner. My the optimism didn’t…
