If You Have It, Sell It, If They'll Buy It

They won't buy it, though. Unless you're one of those people who's into papering bathroom walls with stock certificates, you wouldn't buy it, either: UAL stock.

At least, that's what the airline's latest filing with the SEC says. United's official wording was, "...the company has concluded that its assets will be insufficient to permit any meaningful distribution to its equity holders." In English, that means that present stockholders are dead. If and when United comes out of bankruptcy, any money it would have, would go to pay secured creditors. There won't be anything left to divide up among stockholders.

With a delisting from the NYSE last Winter, the handwriting has been legible for a long time. Share prices over $3 last Summer and Fall seemed to some optimists to have been the beginning of a buy-and-hold strategy. Those espousing such a plan pretty much abandoned it on December 9, when UAL filed for Chapter 11 protection.

The company's reorganization plan goes to the Board this week.

FMI: www.ual.com