The 2008 Financial Crisis
2005 – 3 Oct 201076 items
financeusaWeek by week, from Bear Stearns to TARP
In March 2008 the fifth-largest investment bank on Wall Street sold itself for two dollars a share. Six months later Lehman Brothers was bankrupt, the world’s largest insurer belonged to the Federal Reserve, a money market fund had lost savers’ money, and the United States Treasury was buying shares in its biggest banks. This timeline follows the crisis at the pace it was lived: a prologue in years, the core in weeks, the two worst days in hours.
How to read it
Four bands frame it: the top of the housing bubble, the credit crunch, the acute panic and TARP. They overlap where the phases did.
Bear Stearns’s last week and the Lehman weekend are bands of their own, with the hours inside them.
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bankingfor the institutions that failed,bailoutsfor the rescues,propertyfor housing,stocksfor the markets,regulationfor the laws andeuropefor the crisis on the other side of the Atlantic.
All times are UTC. New York and Washington ran four hours behind for most of 2008, so Lehman’s filing at 1:45 a.m. on Monday 15 September shows as 05:45. For the four centuries of manias before this one, see Bubbles and Crashes.
It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number. — Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis, on the 700 billion dollars, 2008
Items
“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis”
The Fed’s seventeenth straight rate rise
US house prices peak
- ≈ 6 months, 10 days
HSBC warns on American subprime loans
New Century files for bankruptcy
“We’re still dancing”
Two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapse
BNP Paribas freezes three funds
The BBC breaks the Northern Rock story
Queues outside Northern Rock
The Dow closes at a record 14,164.53
Bank of America agrees to buy Countrywide
The Fed’s emergency cut
Northern Rock is nationalised
“We don’t see any pressure on our liquidity”
The Fed lends to Bear through JPMorgan
JPMorgan buys Bear Stearns for two dollars a share
The Bear price goes to ten dollars
IndyMac fails
Paulson asks Congress for a “bazooka”
Bush signs the Housing and Economic Recovery Act
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken into conservatorship
Lehman’s shares fall 45 per cent
Wall Street’s chiefs summoned to the New York Fed
London blocks the Barclays deal
Merrill Lynch sells itself to Bank of America
The SEC tells Lehman’s board to file
Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy
The Dow falls 504 points
The Reserve Primary Fund breaks the buck
The Fed rescues AIG
“We may not have an economy on Monday”
The Treasury guarantees money market funds
Paulson’s three-page bill
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley become banks
Buffett puts 5 billion dollars into Goldman
Bush: “Our entire economy is in danger”
The White House summit falls apart
Washington Mutual is seized
Citigroup to buy Wachovia with FDIC help
The House rejects the bailout, 205–228
The Dow’s record fall: 777.68 points
Ireland guarantees its banks
The Senate passes the bill, 74–25
The bailout becomes law
Wells Fargo outbids Citi for Wachovia
Dick Fuld before Congress
“God bless Iceland”
Britain’s 500 billion pound rescue
Landsbanki taken over; Britain freezes its assets
Six central banks cut rates together
Kaupthing falls
The worst week in the Dow’s history
The euro area’s first summit
Britain takes stakes in RBS, HBOS and Lloyds
Nine bankers at the Treasury
The Dow’s biggest gain: 936 points
The Capital Purchase Program
The first TARP money reaches the banks
Paulson drops the plan to buy toxic assets
Citigroup’s second rescue
The Fed starts buying mortgage bonds
Interest rates go to zero
TARP loans to GM and Chrysler
Obama signs the stimulus in Denver
The market bottoms
The G20 London summit
The stress tests
Dodd–Frank becomes law
TARP stops lending