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BUSINESSFriday 10 March 2017
On the bull market’s 8th birthday, 8 facts to consider
The Associated Press People pose with “Charging Bull,” a bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica, in New York’s Finan- HOME PRICES
Financial markets were cial District. On March 9, 2017, one of the greatest runs for the stock market in history is marking The U.S. housing market
in a pretty dark place on its eighth anniversary, and this time investors are joining the party. They’re putting more dollars was still reeling eight years
March 9, 2009. into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in U.S. stocks, a turnaround from earlier ago from the collapse of
The U.S. financial system years, even though critics see a long list of reasons for caution. the housing boom and the
had been shaken to its financial crisis. Home prices
core by the collapse of (AP Photo/Richard Drew) tumbled as foreclosures
Lehman Brothers a few piled up. By March 2009,
months earlier, plunging Gold has been on a wild WINNING STOCKS $9, and Frontier Communi- the U.S. median home
prices for stocks and a ride up, and then mostly The biggest winners in the cations slid from a bit over price stood at $169,900,
freeze-up in lending. down, in the past eight S&P 500 index during the $5 to about $2.50. according to the National
That turned out to be years. In the summer of bull market include drug HEALTH INSURANCE PREMI- Association of Realtors. The
the day the stock market 2011, gold was looking companies that succeed- UMS downturn continued until
bottomed out after that much more enticing to ed in bringing experimen- Health insurance premi- about 2012, when the mar-
crisis, however, and the a lot of investors versus tal drugs to market, Netflix, ums have spiked well over ket started to slowly come
beginning of the current stocks. Its price surged to which grew into a giant 40 percent since 2008, back. By now, most hom-
bull market, which is now a record high on worries streaming video service, reaching $18,142 per fam- eowners who weathered
the second-longest since about the U.S. credit rat- and travel companies in- ily in 2016, according to The the slump and subsequent
World War II following a 10- ing, Europe’s debt crisis cluding airlines and book- Kaiser Family Foundation rebound have seen their
year run that ended with and the possibility of higher ing websites. and Health Research and home equity recover, and
the dot-com implosion in inflation. But each of those Incyte, a drugmaker, went Educational Trust. If costs then some. The median
early 2000. concerns has dissipated, from just over $2 a share had remained static for home price in January was
With the current bull mar- and $10,000 invested in the to $136, Alaska Air jumped employer-sponsored fam- $228,900, an increase of
ket celebrating its eighth largest gold ETF on March from about $3 to $95 and ily health coverage in the 34.7 percent, according to
birthday, we thought it 9, 2009 is now worth about Netflix jumped from about U.S., rather than paying off the NAR.
would be fun to collect $12,650. $5 a share to $140. your insurer, you could buy BIGGEST COMPANY, THEN
eight facts about the mar- LOSING STOCKS four plane tickets from New AND NOW
ket, and other things peo- Traditional retailers have York to Tahiti, a semester In 2009, Exxon Mobil was
ple care about, that help plunged over the past at a public university, or a by far the biggest publicly
illustrate what’s happened eight years as online com- one-carat pave diamond traded company, with a
since then. petition grew, and natural engagement from Tiffany valuation of $345 billion,
U.S. STOCKS gas companies have strug- & Co. with a white gold more than twice as big as
Anyone with a strong gled as the price of that band. Every year. its closest rival at the time,
enough stomach to have fuel fell by more than half Soaring drug and technol- Procter & Gamble, ac-
held on through the mar- thanks to the rapid growth ogy costs and the lack of cording to S&P Dow Jones
ket’s ups and downs over of fracking. a true market in which pa- Indices. At that time it had
the past eight years has Chesapeake Energy went tients can hunt for the best been just two years since
been handsomely reward- from about $13 to just un- deal all combine to push Apple had released its
ed. A $10,000 investment der $5 a share, Staples went health care costs higher first iPhone, and, well, you
on March 9, 2009 in Van- from over $14 to just under than inflation annually. know the rest. Apple is now
guard’s Total Stock Market by far the biggest publicly
Index fund, the largest mu- traded company with a
tual fund by assets, is now value of $775 billion, more
worth nearly $42,000. than twice Exxon’s current
GOLD value.
DISNEY WORLD
It’s not just stocks, home
prices, and health care ...
prices for fun things have
gone up in the past eight
years, too. A one-day tick-
et for Disney’s Magic King-
dom theme park in Florida
would set you back $75 in
2009, not adjusted for infla-
tion, according to AllEars.
Net. This year, a regular,
one-day adult ticket costs
$115.q
Picked to fix AIG, Hancock will step down
NEW YORK (AP) — Three less than three years ago, cent in one day.
weeks after AIG reported a will remain as the compa- It was its worst perfor-
titanic loss, the person cho- ny’s chief executive until a mance since the New York
sen to turn things around successor is found. company nearly collapsed
at one of the world’s larg- American International in 2008 at the height of the
est insurance companies is Group Inc. reported a financial crisis.
stepping down. fourth-quarter loss of $3.04 AIG required a $180 billion
AIG said Thursday that CEO billion on Feb. 14, and com- bailout to prevent a total
Peter Hancock, appointed pany shares plunged 9 per- implosion.q
