29 November 2011: American Airlines files for bankruptcy
AMR Corporation, parent of American Airlines, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, becoming the last of the big US legacy carriers to do so. It had resisted for years while rivals used bankruptcy to cut labor costs and debt. American later merged with US Airways in 2013 and emerged as the world's largest airline, though AMR's old shareholders recovered only a small part of their investment.
The lesson: Airlines have a long history of destroying shareholder value, even when they keep flying.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in American Airlines at the start of 2015 → $222 today, vs $3,301 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2015, the first year in our price data after the event. That is a loss of $778, while a plain index fund over the same years made $2,301.
What American Airlines teaches: Buying back shares with borrowed money looks shrewd in good times and reckless in bad ones; balance-sheet strength matters most when you can't raise it.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $54.00 | $222 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $52.00 | $231 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $29.00 | $414 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought American Airlines? Every starting year and the full story →
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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