Am I meant to say something smart here?

I can not.

I figured almost everyone was in trouble - but in my wildest dreams it never went in this order:

New Century,
Dozens of other subprimes but without Novastar actually filing bankruptcy
Bear Stearns
Indy Mac
Fannie and Freddie
Lehman
AIG

I have shorted most the stocks on this list - but managed not to pick the order of insolvency and have been short none of them recently. AIG was not a conceiveable bankruptcy in my mind. Sure I knew about the fake accounting with finite insurance and the mortgage insurer. I even knew they owned $20 billion in "super-senior" so they were clearly stupid. But I never knew enough. The stock was always too expensive - and as I found out more it stayed too expensive...

There are plenty of people speculating as to what all this means. I will leave that to them. I want to stick to stuff I do understand. There is still a little of that around...


J