A former client of mine got a letter in the mail last week.
It looked very similar to other letters you might get directly from the company (for example if the company was involved in a merger or takeover).
Here is what it said:
HFSS offers to buy the 544 BHP shares you own for $8,611.52 on the [...]

A Capital Gain/(Loss) is an increase/(decrease) in the value of an asset from purchase to sale.
For example: If you bought shares for $1,000 and sold them for $2,000 then you would have a capital gain of $1,000.
Also, if you bought shares for $1,000 and sold them for $500 then you would have a capital loss [...]

Getting dividend income from shares is a way of getting income where you get a credit for tax paid by the company.

A share (or stock as they call them in the USA) is part ownership of a company. To truly understand what a share is (and how it works) – you need to understand what a company is and how they work.
I don’t own shares
You might say – this doesn’t apply to me as I don’t own [...]

But from a comment I got re: Hoyts Candy bar workers being retrenched last week – I also thought that I don’t want to have the closure of the Hoyts snack bar on my shoulders (the quality of the stuff the sell if usually pretty good).

Given that I don’t want people losing their jobs – should I recommend the Hoyts Candy Bar for another reason?

So if you have shares that dropped in value 20% (or 1/5th of its value) how much would they need to rise to get back to the original value?