EXPECTATION OF INVESTORS

Already struggling with a slower-than-expected economic growth and sagging exports, the demise of Lehman and a homegrown baby milk scandal are rattling Chinese markets

Here we go again. Once more a Wall Street "institution" has bitten the dust, leaving many investors wishing they had socked away their money under the mattress, instead of playing the markets.

This time it is none other than the once-highly-respected Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LEH). The firm's announcement two weeks of plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy capped off a roller-coaster weekend on Wall Street that saw already shaken U.S. markets rattle further due to woes at AIG, other major financial firms and the federal government takeover of beleaguered mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Strangled by the subprime crisis and plunging real-estate values, the storied investment banking titan collapsed under the weight of $60 billion in bad debts on its property holdings. The fall of the venerable 158-year-old Wall Street institution marks the beginning of the largest corporate bankruptcy case in U.S. history, based on total assets before the filing