WOW http://cruise-chat.com/groupee_commo...s/icon_eek.gif What a morning. i think I am going to check my Coffee can that is buried outside and see how it is doing.

I was expecting it to happen. Actually I thought it would be worse but then there still 4 hours of trading left.

I Haven't seen - and don't think I want to know. And my financial planner tells me that burying my retirement funds under the bed is not a good idea ! !

The DOW will probably go below 11,000. It is down over 400 points right now.

What are your thoughts about Merrill Lynch. I don't know if I should be worried or not - that's where my portfolio is. OUCH!!

Merrill Lynch should be okay. Looks like the market got crushed in the last half of trading today. 500 point decline in the Dow.

Bear in mind that managing a portfolio and owning stock in Merrill Lynch are two different things. If you own a lot of Merrill Lynch stock, you may be in trouble although their stock increased today because of BOA buying them out. If ML is simply managing your investments - such as a 401k - it is doubtful that a large percentage of your investment is in ML stock. Typically a portfolio is diversified enough to prevent a huge hit if XYZ company crashes.

Thanks! They are managing my portfolio - I don't have stock in ML. I had inherited the account, and I just don't know enough about all of it as I should. It just worried me when I heard that they were bought out.

I do hope the market will start on it's road to recovery soon though. It is looking pretty ugly right now!

Just think about how many more shares those 3rd quarter dividends are going to buy.

I had my eye on a stock buy today and chickened out. I'm going to wait for this mess to bottom out.

Dwayne