I screwed up...

I violated my rule of not trying to catch a falling knife, and nibbled at shares of Morgan Stanley--I'm down 25% in ONE day, and was actually down even further intraday. Of course, MS is already down over 90%, so at least I avoided the majority of the decline.

I also nibbled on INTC, and am down 10%--still manageable, as this will be a long-term play--INTC has plenty of cash, market share, and a competitive advantage in their manufacturing processes, which gives them pricing power. Hence, they are killing their only remaining viable competitor, AMD, which announced they are pursuing the fabless model. Going fabless frees up cash (a state of the art fab costs up to $4 billion these days), enables agility in fast-moving markets, but you lose control over your manufacturing process, and your variable costs can spiral out of control, especially during allocation (tight supply).

INTC will test their 52-week highs within a year. I really should have stuck to what I know--semiconductors, vs. credit default swaps (I'm not sure anyone understands how to value cds's--which is exactly why we're in the mess we're in).

Lesson learned.