hey konrad.... got your mail.... the best way to avoid the losses you mentioned is by using metastock.... its rare that word does not leak out and most often the company will give hints of it.... during those time frames smart money leaving will give sell side alerts on most of meta's experts.... get out and stay out at that point.... bankruptcies are a tough market to play due to the magnified emotions.... its not worth the risk for the average investor..... you mentioned they are liqudity stock ...... liqudity cuts both ways..... thats nickel daytraders moving 100k shares of 'lu', 'jdsu' and 'sunw' a day that keeps their volume that high.... tough way to make a consistant livin.... a security gettin whacked by after hours bad news is just part of the game..... not much anyone can do to avoid that...... dealing primarily in the etf's does offer me a small degree of protection...... even with etf insulation, huge losses are common for me..... meta helps keep them tolerable...... things are kinda gittin oversold..... if the markets stand today, all eyes will be looking upward for santa's rally.... yeah, thats a big [color=red:a0b508b503]if[/color].....h

K- Forum search 'exchange traded funds'. Also, try google. You will get a million hits. Basically, the protection comes from grouping many securities into the fund. Watch out for sector dips though. I was slow to warm up to ETF's, but after a while I've decided that they suit my style of trading nicely. Anyway... tons of info available with a basic search. Again, I think that you have raised some good questions [earlier]. Perhaps there are no exact answers though. The stock market is 'governed' by a crowd philosophy. Who knows what the masses are thinking? With that said, there is no way to know for sure what is going to happen next. People are always looking for a bargain. Bankruptcy does not always mean that the company is going out of business. It could be a protection from creditor’s bankruptcy that allows the business to continue. There have been many examples of such companies coming back from the grave to do well in a few years. The bargain buyers are making such a gamble. As far as the huge price drop goes, after hours trading may eat you alive. Such was the case with me and GOOG not too long ago. Lots of companies choose to release public information after the close of the regular market session. Then the after hours frenzy begins. I suppose that in this case you are stuck at the mercy of your broker as to when you'll get out. As I said, the stop loss is not a guarentee... it's a desired target. Kinda like the speed limit, some people (prices) just blow right on by and take a while before the chasers can catch up to it.