Jan. 1--An investor would have to be made of Pyrex to withstand the extremes of 2008.

As the closing bell rang Wednesday afternoon, it mercifully ended the third-worst stock market year in history.

The popular Standard & Poor's 500 stock index fell 38.5 percent in 2008, rivaling the 38.6 percent drop in 1937 and the record 47.1 percent plunge in 1931.

The closely watched Dow Jones industrial average, meanwhile, fell 33.8 percent in 2008, ranking only behind a 37.7 percent drop in 1907 and a record 52.7 percent plunge in 1931.

Investors looking for safety found little in most alternative investments.

High quality corporate bonds offered little shelter for college funds or nest eggs, posting one of their worst performances since 1970.

Energy prices flared red hot into summer, but then collapsed into a deep freeze by the onset of winter.

Gold prices edged higher in 2008, but investors in gold-oriented mutual funds lost a third of their money.

"How does that make sense?" asked Dave Anderson, a money manager at Financial Counselors Inc. in Kansas City. "It makes sense because people are selling things without any rational thinking about what they're really worth."

The one place investors made a killing last year was by holding long-term U.S. Treasuries from start to finish. They posted a better than 26 percent gain.

But therein lies the root of virtually all other markets' problems.

Stock exodus

The massive 2008 exodus from equities reminded Anderson of the two-year bear market that pummeled stocks in 1973 and 1974, when he cut his teeth as a stock picker.

The chief difference was that 2008's market suffered from a sudden rush to the exits that contrasted sharply with the steady march out of stocks during that '70s bear.

"It was more drip, drip, drip," Anderson said of the 1973-74 bear market. "This was more of a whoosh."

The stock market's extreme volatility in 2008 presented plenty of traps for unwary investors.

Walt Pyper, 70, fell into one. The California resident said he had emerged from a divorce with nearly $1 million in retirement accounts but no residence and doubts about having enough to leave to his heirs.

So he turned to the stock market.

"My hope was finding something the government would strongly support in the present environment," Pyper said.

He quickly focused on badly beaten-down shares of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both already had been put into federal conservatorships and their stocks had begun to edge higher again.