For Richard Handler, Chairman and CEO of the Jefferies Group, 2011 has been the most difficult of his 21 years with the company.  And, without a doubt, November has been his worst month of 2011. There's no indication things will improve in December.  Nor is there any indication that November will improve over the last 7 days of the month.  All these experiences have taken a toll on Mr. Handler from three perspectives:  financial, business, personal. Financial Hits. With a 62% decline in the price of JEF shares for 2011, Richard Handler's 12.1 million shares have lost nearly $250 million of their market value.  For November, prior to today, the value of his portfolio fell by $38 million. For a change of pace, on Wednesday, 11/23, when all market indexes fell, Jefferies shares actually rose.  The DJIA fell 1.5% and the C-I Financial Index lost 2% - the 6th straight day of losses for banks and brokerage stocks.  JEF gained $0.45 a share to close at $10.51.  That would value Handler's JEF portfolio at just over $127 million - or about 1/3 of their value at the start of the year. Business Hits. On 10/31/11, the day MF Global collapsed under the massive weight of its heavily-leveraged Eurozone sovereign debt holdings, rumors began to fly that Jefferies might be the next brokerage firm to collapse from similar holdings.  The kicker came when Egan-Jones, a small rating agency, downgraded the company from BBB to BBB-, over concerns about the firm's $2.7bn exposure to sovereign debt. Despite the fact that the firm corrected the Egan-Jones report, by showing that it only had a $200mn exposure (its $2.7bn long position was offset by $2.5bn in shorts), the damage was done.  Investors quickly dumped their JEF holdings, which activated at least 2 occasions where "circuitbreakers" kicked in trading halts in the stock. Richard Handler has been issuing letters and announcements at a furious pace to put out each new fire that has been lit.  It didn't help that Egan-Jones announced on 11/22 that it was considering a second credit rating downgrade - which prompted Jefferies, with support from Oppenheimer, to attack the credibility of Egan-Jones.  "Rumors and  half-lies" have surfaced from other sources, to make matters worse.  [C-I Note: Rumor has it that Handler looks like he's aged about 10 years, just in the month of November.  welcome to the "60-something" club. - Just joking.] Personal Hits. With questions swirling about Jefferies' status as a "going concern" and management's ability to take control of its operations (be it fact or fiction), along with constant downward pressure on JEF stock, Handler now faces job security issues.  It doesn't help that he's never had (or felt he needed) the safety of an employment contract in the 21 years he’s worked at New York-based Jefferies.  That means he can be fired at will by the board of directors with no guarantees or golden parachute. Of course, he has the security of his 12.1 million share nest egg, which represents about 6% of outstanding shares.  That's much larger than other Wall Street CEOs, including:  (i) Lloyd Blankfein, who holds a 0.43 % stake in Goldman;  and, (ii)  James Gorman, who holds a 0.05 % stake in Morgan Stanley. News on Jefferies and Handler is posted all over the internet.  Start off by going to this current story link:  [Bloomberg 11/23/11]