Well it's been a rough week for this investor.  Maybe I haven't lived long enough to have been through a financial crisis like this, but man the pain is deep!  Did anybody else get rocked by the major failures this week in their portolios?  I'm down roughly 35% over the past week due to LEH going bankrupt and financials (UYG) bombing.  What's the real bummer is that it will take a 50% gain now just to break even!

Sigh.  Live and learn.  And hopefully save some capital to try again with.  On a side note, are there any real chances that LEH shareholders get anything back?  Or are we talking 3-4 years till the courts are done with them at all?  Any serious ideas?  Yahoo boards are a pit of mindless heathen it seems.

 Recycle

I'm reeling too.  My holdings in AFN are now below a buck a share, yet I still believe that when AFN announces 3Q results, it will rebound on the news and oversold technicals.  I agree with you on the Yahoo finance boards, lots of mindless drivel going on over there and spammers posting links to websites pumping stocks.

A lot of people are. It sucks even more when you don't have a full arsenal of options to help protect you from downside. I'm limited to covered calls, and I covered all my positions this month so it helped some, but still not enough. And actually shorting a stock has always been more scary. I read this on the Yahoo! Finance Message boards- got a chuckle out of it, but I do agree with it:

The Fed is officially out of bullets.

Oh sure, they can bail out Lehman, and they can lower rates some more.

But that @#$% don't fly with wall street any more...so down we go.

You either gotta be:

1) Short
2) In cash
3) Fetal position, sucking thumb

Pick one and act. This one is gonna get ugly!