Ive lost my life savings in WaMu when it tanked. Now what?

im getting hit from all sides, i had $20000 invested in WamU back when it was listed as WM, now it got delisted and i own about $500 total of the stock.. what do i do now? :(
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i got in at 1.69....... i did my research, everyone was talking about how it woul dbe "illegal for the Stock to fail" (thnx a ton Y! finance!), but the co had its roots too deep to fail, and i thought it would hit 1.8 tehn id sell. I owe people money now. What can i do for quick money, theyre gonna come after me..:^(

Sorry to hear about this. If anyone has been reading my posts for the last almost 2 years, I have red flagged a number of institutions, including WM, MER, BSC, LEH, TMA, IMB, to name a few, all on my "BK" watch list.

WM was easy for the veterans traders to figure out. It was heavy invested in CA and FL real estate, had some $100 Billion in home equity lines of credit loans that are prob worth 30-60% less right now. This company was a massive liability.

In the 9 days before the FDIC took over WM, there was a run on the bank where reportedly there was $16 Billion in withdraws from WM.

I stated and restated that I had been put buying and short selling these and other financials since Nov 2007. I don't know who you were listening to, but had I saw the question, I would have told them they were dead wrong.

Some people have said that I may be a little opinionated. That may be true, but if you worked in an industry for 19 years, you would know something about that industry. I could be wrong, and have made some incorrect calls where timing was off, but I also hedge many of my larger dollar sized trades. Historically, I have a very high accuracy rate. I also have learned to get out of trades that are not working. It is not 100% perfect every time, but knowing when to get in and get out are both equally important.

If you look at even my recent post history, I have repeatedly warned to avoid buying WM.

Now I did take some interest when the stock was 16 cents. I thought about buying it for a trade because I knew that the short sellers would have to buy the stock in order to close their open short positions and take a profit. After that the stock would be dead, and go to zero eventually.

My view on the banks that are "too big to fail" are only 2. BAC and JPM. Every other banks is fair game. Citibank (C) comes in a distant 3rd. But I am not touching them.

I'm not sure what you did, and how you owe people money now. Did you borrow 20K from credit lines and make the purchase of WM?

If you don't own real estate, or make a ton of money, you may want to consult with an attorney on your options.

In the future keep in mind:

1. Never put all your eggs in one basket.

2. Never rely exclusively on the internet for your investment, tax, legal or medical advice. Especially avoid people who are "by the seat of their pants" closest want to be financial experts. There are a lot of them here. Some are good, many have no clue, and are GUESSING. I have seen a professor here with a Ph.D in finance who has no clue how the markets work, and have challenged his posts several times citing his inaccuracy.

I have no trade to get you out of your situation. Even if I did, it would not be prudent to advise you to do it. It would be highly speculative - a gamble, because it would take an extreme to fix the losing trade.

Go over your options and regroup.

Start over and learn about diversification or invest in mutual funds or US Treasury Bonds.

It is essentially worthless. You didn't really put all your savings into one stock, did you?

Nothing...there nothing you can do...but....why didnt you take it out a looooong time ago i mean how long has the media been talking about the stock and if you keep up with th stock why didnt you pull it out when our stock went from 48.00 to 1.69.....i mean somewhere in between there you had to say to yourself....hmm...i need to pull this

"honored technique of diversification to protect from market risk."

You can't protect yourself from aggregate (market) risk. You can only protect yourself from idiosyncratic (firm specific) risk.

Just wanted to make sure that was clear.

Live and learn. You took a big risk and suffered the consequences. You might ask Uncle to bail you out. He is certainly bailing everyone else out who is worth more than 50 million. Oh, sorry, you were worth only $20000. Guess he won't help you. No political clout.

Wow, your "life savings" was played on a bank that the vultures were circling!? What were you thinking?

Big companies that are suddenly selling like dust on the floor are dirt cheap for a reason -- there is great risk. You don't bet the farm on a high risk situation.

Years ago, I did something like that with Nortel. That company was selling for something like 50 cents a share. I scoured the news, as I trust you have done, and kept coming back to the fact that they had relatively little debt and over $8 billion in the bank. When it started to rise a little, I shelled out a little of my undesignated funds. It worked. I made a killing, but I was also prepared to kiss it good bye if there was news I missed or was not yet reported.

If you can still get $500 for your shares, take it and run.

<shaking head> Sad, but you're young.. Work, earn, and make better stock choices in the future.

A fool and his money...

That makes me shiver. Consider CDs, bonds, T. bills and strong commodities for savings or a % in a regular FDIC bank. Wish I had better advice.

Sorry to hear about your loss. Unfortunately, you'll just have to work hard to earn more money and this time invest using the time honored technique of diversification to protect from market risk.

I can definitely sympathize w/you; I lost my whole settlement amount ($25000) due to lack of confidence and being aloof. My new definition of money rules? : is that financial responsibility is about learning to get along on a fixed income(whether that be from a pension, SSD, or presetting an allowance for yourself for every week and/or month).

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