RE: A week of reflection I was about to stay away from posting on the PSN BB (since it's been overtaken by paid basher and novice PSN investors) but I feel compelled to answer a few things that you mentioned.
1. Book value ("BV") - the use of BV to assess the company's worth can't be universally applied. PSN is a service company so in theory the value of it's net assets (which is what BV reflects mainly) is not as relevant.
Let's say you're in the office cleaning business and you own an old van plus some cleaning equipment. Your BV is say $5,000. However, you have a contract to clean several major office towers that generated over $1 million in revenue with a huge temporary staff. The fact you BV is so low is of little importance. Your company's true worth is in the ability to generate revenue. Same here with PSN. Don't be so hung up on that number on a stand alone basis.
2. If all you have loss is just some space in your TFSA then you have not lost much. I have a paper loss on PSN of over $100,000 and I still hanging in here. No panic selling for me.
3. The reasons I don't panic are I have a better understanding of this business a), in general, you don't make long term business decisions on the results of just one bad quarter, even Apple has bad quarters. Enough said. b). the O&G service industry is highly cyclical, the whole sector is down right now but they will come back. They always have.
4. All company have bad debt. It's a cost of doing business on credit. Time are tough and customers are behind their bills (look at Greece, you can't pay, the EU allows you more time! LOL). Why is that such a shock when PSN reports a bad debt provision? Banks have such provisions in the billions of dollars, I don't see any panic selling there.
Anyway I also understand that each and everyone is different. The buy, sell or hold decisions are up to the individuals. Personally I have been looking at adding more shares at these ridiculous low prices. Even if the dividend is cut to, say 5 cents, we are still looking at a generous 12% at the current $5 SP. Lots of time for the company to recover when the economy recovers eventually.
It will happen, you all know that. You can take that to the bank!