Beyond Meat - Paying for the Ride

Earlier this year I made a post asking, Will There Ever Be A Vegan Nestlé?

In that post I mentioned that I'd bought some stock in the company Beyond Meat, and I wondered aloud if we'd ever see a huge food multi-national like Nestlé that was exclusively animal friendly. Or if profitable smaller vegan companies would simply get bought up by these existing giants.

Incidentally, Nestlé's stock rose today after an announcement that they're going to be laying off 16,000 workers. So that's bad news, though I guess good news for me, as I own a little bit of Nestlé as well. The Beyond Meat shares however - they're not doing too well. To say the least. And worse still, I've been topping up my position. Buying more on the big slide down. I'm about $400 down, *grimace*.

It's not too bad though, as I'm still doing fairly well overall.

The gold and silver miners are paying for my vegan experiment. In fact, the Beyond stock is the only massively risky thing I own really.

(I kinda feel that bar might

be even higher tomorrow)

So the question is now, have I completely wasted my money? Will Beyond Meat just go out of business.

It's not looking pretty.

The short answer is, I don't know. Whatever happens I'm going to ride it to the bottom though. It was a punt to begin with, so I'm not about to bail out here when it's getting interesting. Whenever I'm in a situation like this the psychology is always very interesting too. There's a social embarrassment that comes with losing money - you look foolish. Like a loser ..literally. So there's this tendency to want to get out of the door as quickly as possible to avoid further humiliation.

For instance here I felt the need to share the graph showing I'm doing well overall to offset the negative. As if to say, "Look, I'm not an idiot, this is just a daft a little side punt that I basically did for a laugh." Though, of course, that's not true. I bought it as a punt, yes, but with the hope that perhaps there would be long term upside. Certainly not for a laugh.

If this psychology applies to me - someone that's generally happy to be an anti-social contrarian - then you can imagine how it works in the wider world. People stampeding out of a stock because the red lights are flashing. Consequently I'm always sat wondering if these investors are being sensible or just blindly panicking. Perhaps the panic itself is sensible? At least they'll save some money if they run when everyone else starts running.

Normally when I go against the grain I don't care at all. I'm comfortable riding out red numbers. The only other time I felt like an idiot was with the Russian stocks - my only other big mistake thus far. I did feel a touch of embarrassment there.

The Sberbank, Gazprom and Evraz shares are still sitting, comatose, in my eToro account, so I'm enjoying the experiment nevertheless. Perhaps they'll reanimate at some point. And maybe these Beyond Meat shares will come back from the dead. Though my slightly reddened face suggests I'm sugar-coating an obvious mistake.

Being vegetarian I also have a moral dog in the fight. Albeit I've never actually tried a beyond burger. (Again, foolhardy to invest in a product I've never even tried - normally I tend to buy things I like and use.) Really I should try one. It would be fun. Plus, with government mandating folic acid in everything I'm looking to widen my dietary options anyway.

I must remember to buy some beyond burgers - and some wholemeal flour buns - and then report back.

The wider cultural trend seems to be a move towards vegetarianism/veganism and animal welfare. However, the recent rightwards shift we're seeing in politics runs counter to this, and it's becoming fashionable to positively espouse meat-eating in these circles. The animal-friendly options being heavily associated with globalism and all its ills. I've even seen these products referred to as goyslop. The claim that these products aren't natural and healthy heightening this. So it's difficult to gauge which way the wind is blowing.

I would like to see us move away from animal products, but in a way that's positive for humans too. Perhaps the back and forth will force an evolution towards excellence. Either way, it's interesting to watch.

So, as with the Russian shares, I'm enjoying the journey, but the fare price has a been a little hefty so far.