Any stock pickers out here??

Yes I know it's not the right forum...But I am looking at Citigroup (C) and Washington Mutual (WM).  Both are getting killed by the subprime market and bad credit card debt.  Plus the goverment is investigating and you have a lot of class action suits coming up.  If I bought a small amount of both companies and put them in my IRA would I be nuts?  Am I catching a falling knife??  And how will this effect my folic acid intake???  Had to throw in something related to WLS...Thoughts...Brian

Buy low and sell high. Thats the extent of my stock market savy. But I suspect you knew that already :)   To me it looks like that simple rule may be in effect. Good luck.

The real question is, have they hit the bottom yet? A few CEO's have been fired over the subprime, but the bottom will still fall after the CEOs are replaced because of the general lack of confidence in the ability of the industry to fully recover.  If the real estate market is dried up and most consumers are over spent on credit cards, what type of loans will these institutions have left to make to start making a profit again? Most likely their only choice will be to issue risky loans to generate some cash flow that more solvent companies would pass on. It may be a wiser choice to find an innocent bystander like a Europe based bank  that was tarnished by these two and has a good chance of recovering their prior status.  Citi and WaMu might end up being bought up by a bigger fish, and those types of acquisitions are very slow to recover because the buyer of the down-and-outer has to swim up steam carrying two bodies.  Herb

Well if you are looking for a long term outlook  (i'm assuming you are not retiring in the next 5 years) and you have a diversified portfolio ...i can't see any harm in buying a small amount of both stocks and storing them away ....and hoping they'd be a big pay off.   both groups have considerable resources.....and will likely bounce back by the time you retire.  In general blue chip type stocks are very well managed (long term) and come back eventually.   But like anything...sometimes stocks are a gamble...it may pay off big...and then again you may end up losing...but in a well diversified portfolio...you should be able to cover those kinds of losses.  Scott PS I'm not a finanical manager, nor do i play one on TV......I just like to read..and think about what I would do if I had a lot of extra money to invest (buy stocks of  chinese and indian companies) Scott

Used to be a stock picker...now I'm broke skinny kenny

Just came over the wire...Citigroup's CEO is leaving with a severance package of only 42 million!!  He was robbed!!  What did they lose, maybe 12-16 billion in bad loans.  I could have done that for half the wages!!  I think a couple of you guys are right...Wait for the dust to settle, then try and buy quality companies (industry leaders) and hold on for the long haul...Brian