USA Today's Matt Krantz reports that shares of some companies bankrupted by the financial crisis have posted huge gains in recent months: "Lehman and WaMu, for instance, were booted from stock exchanges and filed for bankruptcy protection. Yet on the lightly regulated Pink Sheets markets, this year their stocks are up 500% and 1,050%, respectively."

The problem is that shares of companies like Lehman and WaMu are completely worthless with no prospect for recovery for shareholders. Ownership of the company's assets is no longer held by the common stock -- and with creditors taking losses, there is no chance that shareholders will receive a nickel.

Despite its recent successes at negotiating new contracts and its refusal, so far, to accept government funds, when General Motors (NYSE: GM) goes into Chapter 11, Ford (NYSE: F) will have to do the same to remain competitive.

Given the ferocity of this downturn, if it didn't accept government handouts, it would probably end up in some form of forced re-organization anyway.

Real shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

This is a ridiculous company with an even more ridiculous management group. General Motors' (NYSE: GM) cars are mediocre, its union contracts are incredibly extravagant in a brutally competitive industry, and management seems to think we are still in the 1950s.

Recently, the company's auditors raised even more concerns about the automaker's ability to survive without more loans from the government.

GM's own forecast assumes survival based on a car market that is larger in 2013 than it was in 2006. Yeah, right.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) CEO John Stumpf drank from the same watercooler as Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) Ken Lewis when he bought Wachovia and its $70 billion-plus in option ARMs.

It will survive, but it has no room to grow due to upcoming write-offs -- three to five years' worth at a minimum.

Real shareholder value: a lot less than the current stock price

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

This may be the first place you read about JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) being a zombie.

It speaks, and occasionally thinks, but it holds toxic mortgages, specifically something called option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), it acquired when it bought Washington Mutual.

The company's ability to grow will be constrained for three to five years minimum.

True shareholder value: considerably less than its current price

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

I lump these zombies -- our first zombies -- together because everyone else does.

You and I are now the proud owner of these lifeless monsters, which have hundreds of billions of dollars in obligations on mortgages of declining quality.

What's more, for political reasons, their future will not be resolved for several years.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has more toxic assets than the landfills around the New Jersey Turnpike. Its balance sheet is a wreck, and its off-balance sheet assets of mostly unknown quality are up to $1.2 trillion.

The government is the largest shareholder in the company, and Citi will eventually have to break itself up, a process that began with the placement of its brokerage arm into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

In the past year, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis lost his mind and bought not just failed mortgage company Countrywide, but failing investment bank Merrill Lynch, killing his shareholders and turning his company into the largest zombie bank around.

Forget his bravado -- the company has huge problems and is fast becoming a ward of the state.

True shareholder value: maybe a buck

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

AIG (NYSE: AIG) is being kept alive because of huge obligations created through derivatives it sold. And this once-great insurance company is now being broken up, limb by limb.

The eventual taxpayer loss could endow enough colleges to permanently create half a million tuition-free slots for students or pay for health insurance for every American doing without.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

Right now there are few things scarier than the post-market report on CNBC. It's almost like watching a horror movie.

And I've got some zombie stocks that you need to stay far, far away from.

A zombie is a dead person brought back to life without speech (keep quiet or you don't get any TARP money) or free will (Uncle Sam is now the largest shareholder).