Blog: The Numbers: Here's What 2008 Looked Like

Added December 28, 2008 by Ilyce Glink

Print Articles

As we end the year, it's hard to picture just how awful a year this was. It's even harder to imagine what 2009 will be like if 2008 was this bad.

One way to judge a year is by the numbers. Here are a few of the most interesting:

Stock Market:

S&P fell 1.7% last week to 872; down 41% in 2008 Dow Jones fell 1% last week to 8515; down 36% in 2008 NASDAQ fell 2.2% last week to 1530; down 42% in 2008

(note: this doesn't include how much the market fell from November 07-December 07)

Retail: fell 5 to 8% in December; down 2 to 4% n/i gas and food

GDP: down .5% in 3Q2008; could fall as much as 5% in 4Q08

Home Sales:

Existing home sales down 8.6 percent in November Median price existing homes down 13.2% to $181,300 (biggest drop in 40 years) 11.2 month supply (inventory) existing homes (4.2 million total)

New Home sales down 2.9 percent in November Median price new homes down 11.5 percent to $220,400 11.5% month unsold inventory new homes (374,000 total)

New home sales 2005: 1.4 million New home sales 2008: 407,000 (down 35% from 2007)

Unemployment: 586,000 first-time claims this week unemployment rate at 6.7 percent (as high as 10%+ in Michigan)

Credit Card Industry: Average 2007 chargeoffs: 3.55 to 5.6% Average 2008 chargeoffs: 5.05 to 7.86%

(In both cases, the low for chargoffs was JPMorgan Chase and the high was Bank of America)

Interest Rates:

Federal Funds rate started 2008 at 4.25%; Ended 2008 at 0% 10-year note started 2008 at 4%; ended 2008 at 2% (not seen since Depression Era)

Private sector paying much more for interest rates because the bond market is still frozen.

30-year mortgage ended 2008 at 5.14 percent (lowest in 40 years+)

Oil Prices:

January 08: $90/barrel gallon of gas $3.00 July 08: $146+/barrel gallon of gas $4.60 December 08: $37/barrel gallon of gas $1.65

Published: Dec 28, 2008

See more articles on this topic by clicking on the "RELATED ARTICLES" above and to the right.

We have over 5000 articles on Real Estate Advice, Personal Finance Advice and Consumer Advice on our site. We encourage you to look at these articles. As always, if you have a comment on our articles, don't forget to post your comment below. We thank you for coming to ThinkGlink.com.

© Ilyce R. Glink. All rights reserved. This content may not be used, distributed, syndicated, compiled or excerpted in any medium or form without written authorization from Think Glink, Inc. For information on syndicating ThinkGlink.com please contact us.

Previous blog post Next blog post