Amy, this is nothing new, has occurred over and over during manias, and will continue to occur. You don't hear too much about it now, but when IBM was going through it's massive downsizing, (employee count went from a high around 400k in 1985 to a low of around 215k in 1993, almost 200k folks gone in one form or another), I knew many 'oldtimers' from the days of 'IBM is a lifetime job' that had all their retirement cash in IBM stock. Well guess what, they were asked to leave their jobs at the same time IBM stock hit a split adjusted $10/share in 1993. Double whammy, some panicked and sold at the bottom. Sorry, but anyone that 'bets their house' with options gets no sympathy from me.
Regards,
John
PS - If you think the Intel fall is bad, what about Lucent? Did you read the 'Heard on the Street' article in yesterday's WSJ where a Lucent exec is suing because she tried to have the CEO cut revenue projections and he apparently turned her down? That stock has moved from 84 to 13 5/8, and I bet there are some folks taking worse hits with LU in 401k accounts... |
