Another recent thread on this board touts a DRIP as a failsafe way of profitably investing in Aqua America. Given the Pollyanna nature of that thread, I wonder if a company employee wasn't responsible for posting it in an effort to sucker more people into buying. But I digress...

Nearly 5 years ago I started a DRIP with Aqua America. It was through Equiserve, which later became Computershare. The DRIP's purpose was to provide my son with additional funds for a down payment when he bought his first house. He's now doing that, so let's do a reality check on whether I did him any favors.

With Aqua America's further drop today, the DRIP investment has lost 29% of its value. This is even in spite of the increased share purchases made possible as the pps has dropped and the dividend has risen. Sobering, but that's not all.

The actual loss on this investment if liquidated today is actually over 30%. This is due to back-end fees of a flat $15 to liquidate, plus the .15 charge per share at sale time. That's a hefty back-end load!

Please, please, if you are considering a DRIP with Aqua America, run, don't walk, in the other direction. You'll do much better by simply putting your face amount into a CD, even with rates as low as they are now.

Now, some silly person may respond to this post by lamenting my lack of timing. So just in case, I'll respond right here: You don't think that in nearly 5 years the "timing" issue would have become moot? Just how many decades would I have had to hold this investment to get back to breakeven?