Growing up in the UK, I remember the weekly visit of the “Rag & Bone” man. This Albert Steptoe-like character would roll past on his horse and cart each week shouting “Raaag ‘n booooone.”

Here in Australia it’s different. The local council asks us to put all our large item rubbish onto the nature strip a couple of times each year. After scavengers have picked over it, the council takes it all away for us.

It’s rubbish day in the financial markets too. The time is ripe - for the banks especially - to shovel out as much garbage as they possibly can. The bad news just keeps coming.

Not only that, but ANZ, Westpac and NAB (and St George) have or will soon have, reasonably new management teams. They’ll grab the opportunity to dump and lay blame on previous management decisions.

The banks are the most interesting story out of all the listed companies. ANZ Bank is clearly the worst performer out of the four majors, having fallen by 50% from its high. However CBA, Westpac and NAB haven’t done spectacularly well either having fallen by more than 20%, 20% and 40% respectively.

The size of NAB’s exposure to US-based CDO’s was extraordinary compared to the other three major banks. It just looks like the classic case of “smart” people being suckered into a product that was great when interest rates were low and people could service debt, but not so great when the reverse happened.

And if you still aren’t quite sure how a CDO works, well, you aren’t alone. Apparently NAB had no idea about the mechanics of a CDO either.

There are plenty of commentators out there declaring that the worst of it is over (even last week in this column we thought that the ‘vibe’ of the market had changed – excepting financials). But it still seems a little premature to dive in, boots and all. Let’s not forget that we’ve heard at least half a dozen times during the last six months that the “worst is over”, or that there is “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Yet the market still continues to wobble at these lower levels.

So what should the trader or investor do? Naturally we can’t give personal advice otherwise we’d get a slap across the chops from ASIC. But we’ll say thing. For the trader a volatile market should be a happy time providing they adjust their risk tolerance. For an investor, over the longer term, averaging in at these prices may not be the craziest thing in the world to do. Just don’t go thinking you’ve picked the bottom of the market.