<prompt> Human: DB seemed to rally yesterday after the initial response from hedge fund investors pulling out turned around. Do people here think that the DOJ might try and settle the fine this October as a quasi-political move? And if so what impact will that have? The initial news was pretty grim but was that just sensationalism on part of the media outlets? Is anyone taking steps to minimize their exposure?EDIT: Thanks all. I was looking to have a discussion on the severity of the risk involved in a potential DB collapse and I think we did that. My take away, theres no reason to react to the news as my finances are focused on the long term and not likely to be significantly impacted by a single unstable investment bank.Assistant: If your personal finances are materially exposed to banking fines, youre doing it wrong. Human: The DB situation isnt just the fine. Theyre a castle built on sand. Theyve been trying to reduce risk in their portfolio for some time Assistant: If your personal finances are materially exposed to one companys performance, youreprobably doing it wrong.To the extent such exposure is unavoidable to you being employed by or being a senior equity holder in the company, such material exposure may not be something you can feasibly avoid. I dont think that is what you are talking about.Generally, if short term stock gyrations upset your financial plan or require action, you are doing it wrong.Human: I think its more of a question of whether people think the DB problem is that big.Consider the ECs actions against Apple, Merkels bail in policy, and the general political ... Confusion in the EU. With that in mind, Merkels decision of if to bail out DB is either the end of her career and further movement to dissolution of the EU, or opening up another possible wave of potential financial crisis. Either way, confidence in EU leadership and their seeming inability to get a handle on things can have a lot of fallout.I doubt the US will back off its fine too much considering recent moves on US companies. So... I dont think questions on how to minimize exposure to all the possible fallout is doing it wrong.Assistant: This is exactly what Im asking. Is the problem going to balloon beyond just DB? Of course I dont hold all my savings in one stock but are there wider implications as some news outlets are reporting to this story? DB is the sixth largest investment bank, surely there are wider ramifications of their own turmoil?  <response>: I think what youre asking is, could there be a financial-industry-wide meltdown, at or greater than 2008 levels. Theres always that chance, but whether its 0.1 or 99 today isnt something you or anyone can know in real time. So basically, I think youre asking, Could I time the market, based on this non-insider information? And the answer to that is pretty much always the same: maybe you could, just like maybe you could win at the craps table. But its not generally a great idea to try, except with money you could afford to lose in the first place. 