It's not a good day for a bank when the Seattle Times story on the crater your stock fell into begins like this:

Your money is safe if its in an institution insured by the FDIC. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. covers up to $100,000 per institution, and even may provide additional coverage for IRAs in those banks.

On the heels of last week's sell-off of stock in too-big-too-fail mortgage holders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (with about $5.2 trillion in U.S. home mortages, about half the entire market), WaMu stock lost 35% of its already anemic value today, after Lehman Brothers analyst Bruce Harting said the bank is likely on the hook for a $26 billion write-down ($21 billion of that in mortgage defaults).

It's not just WaMu, of course. It was a bad day for regional banks across the U.S., with news outlets listing "the biggest losers." WaMu has $40 billion in reserves, so your ATM will likely still be stocked with cash. But a return to profitability will not be quick. And the general liquidity crunch--as banks are forced to augment capital reserves to cover losses--is settling in for a longer visit than anyone was hoping for.

Ironic photo from our very own Seattlest Flickr pool, courtesy of our very own scarequotes.