Well, all I can say is that nowadays has been one of the worst days of my portfolio’s life. I’m not concerned about my core holdings — Disney (NYSE: DIS), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), General Electric (NYSE: GE), stuff like that — but, boy oh boy, are my financial positions taking some major hits!

I know, I know — you’re saying to yourself, “uh, buddy, didn’t you realize that was going to happen?” certain, but when the theory becomes reality, that’s when the torture really starts to set in. Not certain whether you caught the wave of downgrades nowadays — whether you didn’t, check out Eric Buscemi’s post about it — but I got hammered by one of them. MFA Mortgage (NYSE: MFA) was downgraded by Keefe Bruyette on book-value concerns. As I write that, it’s trading down by 15% — oooh, it hurts to write such a double-digit figure — on, get that, volume of by 15 million shares. The 30-day average volume is closer to 4 million shares. I’m writing that with a couple hours to go to shut! It’s going to be a huge volume day once all is said and done. I additionally own Newcastle Investment (NYSE: NCT), CapitalSource (NYSE: CSE) and

Have I been shaken out yet? No. In fact, in terms of MFA, I personally think that it is a buy, even though it could be in falling-knife mode right now (that’s always difficult to discern). I know Timothy Sykes would disagree on that strategy, so you should check out his post for some balance. With Ben Bernanke most likely set to cut the Fed Funds rate even further, MFA should benefit, as should most financials. I additionally like CapitalSource, but I am a little wary at that point of Newcastle — I think it will recover, but that one’s been particularly volatile. As they say, when there’s blood on Wall Street, that’s sometimes the best day to do some judicious buying (after a ton of due diligence, of course). And, as a postscript, whether you want to do only safe buying, thereupon Disney, Coke and GE might be good ideas to look at — GE has an particularly interesting yield right now.

Disclosure: Steven Mallas owns shares in Disney, Coca-Cola, MFA common and MFA preferred, CapitalSource, Newcastle Investment, and GE. Positions can change at any moment.

Original post by Steven Mallas

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