Trade your stock for steak

As the market tanks 200 points today, maybe you should start thinking about trading in some shares for a fat steak: 

New York City steakhouse Smith & Wollensky announced in a full-page ad in the New York Times business section today that starting immediately it would accept NYSE and NASDAQ stock certificates in payment for its USDA Prime steaks at both lunch and dinner.

In a tongue-and-cheek message, the ad noted that with large banks paying out bonuses in stock instead of cash, "the effects on the local economy could be catastrophic, leaving large tracts of land in the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard undeveloped; legions of real estate brokers, personal shoppers and pet psychiatrists unemployed; and massive amounts of steak and lobster uneaten."

"So bring us your CIT (CIT),
your GS (GS), your MS (MS), your C (C); we'll gladly exchange them for porterhouse and ribeye. And yes, we'll even accept GM (GM).  "

So how many shares might you have to fork over for, say, a $48.50 New York Cut sirloin on the bone?

Based on recent trading prices, that slab of aged beef would require just over one and half shares of CIT Group, a third of a share Goldman Sachs, almost 28 1.7 shares of Morgan Stanley and a bit more than 14 shares of Citigroup.

GM shares are an entirely different matter. In the wake of GM's bankruptcy filing, its old shares now trade as Motors Liquidation Company, recently fetching a whopping price of 61 cents, meaning you'd have to part with nearly 80 shares.

Continue Article at CNN Money