Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Tex]

can't go to zero?

I beg to differ. If buy interest plummets, trade volume will make position exits costlier than the position values, and you have zero.

I actually owned shares in a bank whose common went to zero like this. It had excellent, solvent, professional clients, and its physical premises were in an absolute diamond of a location to capture business in the world's largest medical center. Some buffoon in a department whose business I wasn't following tanked it in the '80s S&L crisis. It was "rescued" by a buyer who knew the real estate was worth a fortune. Wells Fargo now sits on the spot, and the bank's buyer laughed all the way to her other bank.

It's what you don't know that kills you.

The question whether these two financials go to zero is not based on a theoretical residual value, but hard math. If the company can't pay off its debt owners, the equity owners are screwed: the slice they share is zero if the higher-priority claims get naught. The question is what terms the federal government demands for this bailout. Hopefully, and here I write as a taxpayer, government gets something for the funds it provides.

Incidentally, folks with prior investment experience in Fannie and Freddie have taken a dim view of their current financial condition:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aooA6DOXavYw

Take care,
--Tex.