Grenier said he can't predict how long it will take for jobs to start growing again, and he said one big question is whether investors will jump back in or sit on the sidelines. In the case of Lehman, he said, many investors may have been hoping that the federal government would step in to offer assistance, as it did for Bear Sterns this spring. When that didn't happen, he said, investors also decided against getting involved, and Lehman ended up having to file for bankruptcy. more

Hedge funds may sound exotic, but they aren't necessarily risky. Still, because they are unregulated, investors need to know what they're getting into. "The original hedge fund was designed to take risk out of investing," says David Grenier, the president of Cutler Capital Management in Worcester, Mass. more

"Local bankers were being challenged across the U.S. in the same way for commercial real estate loans, so the banks had to decide whether they were going to reduce the price (of loans) or accept higher loan-to-value ratios," Grenier said. "The question is . . . what kind of position did they put themselves in?" more

The market always anticipates an economic recovery, but if the economic predictions are any guide, the earliest the market would start to show glimmers of a recovery would be February 2009. So, how do you position your portfolio in the meantime? "There are still opportunities to make money," says David Grenier, president of Cutler Capital Management. more

"The problems manifest themselves differently in the small banks," says Dave Grenier, president of Cutler Capital Management, a money management firm that invests in bank stocks. "There is a softness out there. It's tied to what is going on in the local economies. If you're a community banker, this thing is just starting to roll." more