Roslyn Ritz is hanging in, but Bill Lidstone just said no.

Welcome to another round of the great Canadian pastime, deciding what to do about Nortel Networks Corp. stock.

Sell? Buy? Do nothing? For Ms. Ritz, it's Door No. 3.

"I'm 80 years old, I've got a very nice portfolio and I'm just going to leave my shares," said Ms. Ritz from her Montreal home. "I didn't get out at $124 [a share] because I was stupid, so I'm going to leave it and hope it will come back. Do you think it will come back?"

Mr. Lidstone doesn't, which is why he took a big, flying pass on Nortel yesterday despite his flirtation of many years with the stock.

"To be quite honest, I was sitting here and I was saying to myself, 'maybe this is a buy opportunity,' " Mr. Lidstone said. "And then I thought, 'what the hell are you doing?' " Mr. Lidstone, a 52-year-old public relations consultant in Toronto, has bought Nortel about half a dozen times in the past several years -- "from $60 to $125," as he puts it, "and then from $40 to dust."

Yesterday, he looked at the company's firing of its CEO amid questions about its financial statements, and said no thanks. "I have no idea what the company's numbers are, so I don't know what I'm buying." Deciding what to do about Nortel is a personal matter that requires serious thought. But if you want to simplify your investing life, you'll flee this endless car accident of a stock.

You likely won't be able to rid yourself entirely of Nortel because of its weed-like presence in many widely held mutual funds, as well as index funds tracking the S&P/TSX composite and S&P/TSX 60 indexes.

But direct ownership of Nortel shares is a bad habit, sort of like cigarettes. There's an occasional buzz to be had from owning this stock, but ultimately it's bad for your portfolio's health.

If you bought Nortel in the dark days when it bottomed out in the area of 67 cents a share in 2002, you've made out well enough. Sell.

If you've held on to Nortel stock when it was priced in the high double digits or more, your optimism and fortitude are to be commended. Your sense of reality is not, however. Sell.

Vancouver investment counsellor Adrian Mastracci of KCM Wealth Management hit on something yesterday when he jokingly called Nortel "Canada's darling."

It's too true. No matter what this stock does, we always see its best side. When it goes up, people think it will go up more. When it goes down, people grumble and then figure it will go back up.

Who knows, it may just do that. In fact, some investment dealers upgraded their recommendations on Nortel yesterday.

CIBC World Markets bumped it up to "sector outperformer" from "sector performer," while TD Newcrest went to "speculative buy" from "hold" and GMP Securities went to "buy" from "reduce." CIBC believes the worst is past.

There will be trading opportunities in Nortel in the days to come. And it's possible the retired U.S. Navy admiral now running it will make the company be all that it can be.

But let's go back to CIBC's comment about the worst being past. For many investors, Nortel is a company where the worst is past, present and, one fears, future.

Take Ms. Ritz's experience, for example. She acquired some of her 2,400 shares when Nortel was spun off from BCE Inc. back in May, 2000, a point when Nortel traded in the $80 range. The shares later hit a peak of $124.50 and then keeled over. Ms. Ritz bought in at $65 or so and then again in the $2 to $3 range. While she's hanging on to her shares, she won't buy more.

"I'm resentful," she said. "I'm very resentful of the people who run the company because I don't feel they have any desire to help shareholders, none whatsoever."

Mr. Lidstone's experiences with Nortel scarred him to a point where he changed the way he invests. "What Nortel did was it drove me out of thinking I can beat the game, that I can beat the investment professionals," he said. "So what I did was take my holdings and find myself one of those professionals. Now I watch him make mistakes."

Without a doubt, there will always be money to be made in Nortel. Just remember this stock's good at producing heartbreak, too.

NOTE: The information provided above is intended for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute advice for anyone's specific situation. Everyone should always first consult directly with their advisors to determine the appropriateness of any information contained above before taking any action. KCM Wealth Management Inc. assumes no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of, or reliance upon the above information.