December 23, 2008

Bankers are counting down the days until they officially close the book on a terrible 2008. Too bad the outlook for 2009 is just as dismal.It may seem hard to imagine how 2009 can be worse than this year for the industry. Governments around the globe were forced to institute massive bailout programs.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) lost more and more money as the credit crisis gained momentum and needed a more than $300 billion backstop from the government to keep it afloat. IndyMac and Washington Mutual both failed. Investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

And investors lost tons of money in bank stocks. Through late December, the Standard & Poor's banking index and the regional bank-focused KBW Bank Index had both lost more than half their value in 2008.