The Ford fiasco played out quite publicly and, while the end result wasn't a major blow to Kerkorian's wealth, he ended up with some egg on his face. Kerkorian once owned about 10% of General Motors (NYSE: GM), but sold that stake in late 2006 while share prices were still reasonable. After a failed attempt to buy Chrysler at a bargain basement price in April 2007, his attention turned to Ford in early 2008. Tracinda bought 20 million shares of Ford just this year, giving it a total position of 100 million shares with an average cost of $6.91. However, this past year has not been kind to the auto industry and Tracinda backed out of this position starting in October. Tracinda sold 7 million shares at $2.43, for a loss of 65%, and indicated it would sell the rest as well. Currently, Ford is up about 40 cents from the price at which they sold it.

While we won't be collecting canned food donations to feed Mr. Kerkorian any time soon, he and his investment firm have made some missteps over the past year. Most people in the markets have lost money, but he has lost billions, making him one of our Money Losers of 2008.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in F, GM, or MGM.

Be sure to check out more Money Losers of 2008.