Financial-stock meltdown tops Nasdaq’s 2000-2002 dive

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Another bear-market milestone: The crash in financial stocks now has exceeded the crash in technology stocks in 2000-2002.

Amid yet another devastating market rout today, the index of 81 financial stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell as low as 94.46, down 6.6% for the day and an 81.5% drop from the all-time closing high of 509.55 on Feb. 20, 2007.

By contrast, the peak-to-trough decline in the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index in the 2000-2002 bear market was 77.9%.

It took Nasdaq 31 months to reach its bottom. The financial-stock meltdown now is in its 25th month.

It’s getting easier to equate the financial sector wipeout to what happened to many dot-com issues, in particular, in 2000-2002 -- as the stocks were reduced to mere pennies a share.

Just consider the list of once high-flying financial stocks that now sell for less than $3.50 a share. Among them: Bank of America, Citigroup, American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, MBIA Inc. and Genworth Financial.

As a group, however, the financials haven’t yet fallen as much as the dot-coms did in their crash. The Inter@ctive Week index of stocks closely tied to the dot-com boom gave up 91.5% of its value by the time it bottomed in 2002.

There’s something to which financial-sector bears can still aspire.

-- Tom Petruno