Washington Mutual Begins Auction to Sell Itself

I bid $1.53

Careful - you might win.

If a bank goes into a conservatorship, does it affect its customers' ability to withdraw money? I don't mean pulling all of your money out. I just mean, can you go to the ATM and get $200 or is all of the money frozen for a certain amount of time?

waverly, nothing should change with your money if it is in an FDIC insured account (under $100k) and it's in conservatorship. however, it could certainly affect your ability to get instant liquidity (i.e., ATM or branch withdrawals) if the bank does not have the money to cover all it's withdrawal requests. This is the classic run on the bank. However, the FDIC insurance is pretty good with that - typically you can get all your money out within a matter of days. Though you may have to wait in line for quite a while dealing with the situation.