Financial meltdown

What a shocking last few weeks for those involved in the financial industry, firstly we had Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the US filing for bankruptcy then we had Merrill Lynch, another big US investment bank being taken over by Bank of America and now in the UK we have HBOS about to be taken over by Lloyds TSB.

The stock markets have been on a downward spiral with the FTSE 100 closing at its lowest level for about 3 years whilst stockmarkets around the world have also been badly effected. The Russian stock exchanges have been suspended and have fallen 60% since their high back in May 2008.

The whole world appears to be affected and it makes you wonder if you are better simply putting your savings under the mattress rather than invest them in shares or is now the time to buy shares as how much lower can the markets fall before they bounce back up?