That’s a bad break. I feel bad for you. I did a thing, a few years ago, where I put some money in a deferred comp plan in a former firm. (Insurance company) Sure, it’s easy to look back and say I was an idiot but you always think things are going to be just as expected. When I left they told me I owed them $35,000 for training and other garbage and said I could have my money after I paid them off. It wasn’t a huge amount of money but it’s a lot to me.    



I fear there are going to be many bad breaks in the near future. Especially if you live in a town where SB and MS have an office. There are going to be many sad stories in the next few months. God help us all. Our industry is in for some serious change.

My apologies.  I was with SB until last month.  And up through 2007 our 401k match was with Citigroup stock, but I was in a different program.

It would have also been expensive to be buying puts on Citi all the way down.  At least buying the inverse banking ETF would have come close to a hedge without putting up a lot of options premium.  I have a client who has $20mm worth of commercial real estate, and for the past year we’ve been trading in and out of SRS, making money in the inverse REIT ETF while his asset values have fallen apart.  Just an idea, albeit in retrospect.

Citi is done.  And it’s no different than Enron or Eastern Airlines in the respect that a badly managed firm hurts a lot of people whose incomes, reputations, pensions, retirements, and deferred comp gets annihilated.  The irony is that we’re pretend that OUR situation is different, and that it’s okay to have all OUR eggs in one basket.

Actually puts could have been purchased easily for less than the stock dividend. And I would realistically never thought of covering 100% of the value I would have undoubtedly used some out of the money puts. I would not have protected all of it, but maybe 60 to 70%.