According to statistics, long-term investing is a successful endeavour. Long-term investors can't, however, avoid suffering significant losses
For example, during the course of five years, the share price of United Oil & Gas Plc (LON:UOG) dropped by 51%.
For long-term holders, that is a bad experience.
And because the stock has fallen 40% in the past year, it's not just long-term investors that are suffering.
In addition, it has decreased by 25% in the past quarter. For holders, that's not very enjoyable.
The longer-term decrease in United Oil & Gas's worth has been justified given that it has lost US$1.6m in the last week.