Wall Street Doubters Growing

"I would not be surprised to see a major bank or brokerage house insolvency," says Steve Podnos, an independent financial planner at Wealth Care.

The most recent call to Imes was "a client who thought she heard me say that Citigroup is a custodian we use," he writes in an email. "She is thankfully wrong, but after I explained the situation in detail and informed her that her assets were safely held at Pershing and Schwab, she asked how this might affect the money market funds she owns, which is a very large position I might add."

"The hard part is figuring out what you own," says James Holtzman, adviser and shareholder at Legend Financial Advisors. He says more than a few clients have inquired about whether or not their money market fund has exposure to subprime or any mortgage-backed debt.

Holtzman says he's not opposed to recommending investors move to a "garbage-free" money market account, earn just over 4%, and wait this out for the next 18 months.

"Cash isn't a bad thing at different points in the market cycle, and this is one of them," he says.

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