Rep. Index

Smart decisions are based on more than government statistics, agency reports, news releases, interest rates and stock quotes. We've selected a few fascinating statistics here that illuminate the markets, the world of financial services and big business. Presenting the Registered Rep. Index.

1. Percentage by which the $750 billion bailout exceeds the cost of the entire New Deal: 33

2. Total paper losses in the portfolios of 175 chief executives from close of the company's most recent fiscal year through October 27, 2008: $52.3 billion

3. Amount of paper loss represented by Warren Buffett: $15.9 billion

4. Average total return (add dividends, subtract inflation) on S&P 500 since 1916: 6.7 percent

5. Average stock market return per year for the 25-year period ending June 20, 1957, also the best 25-year average on record: 12.7 percent

6. Average return for the subsequent 25 years, the worst on record: 2.2 percent

7. Percent of consumers who always carry, or usually carry, a credit-card balance: 54.6

8. Average U.S. state debt per capita: $1,053

9. Average number of new federal crimes that Congress creates each year: 56

10. Chance that a 411 call in the U.S. is handled by a federal prisoner: 1 in 136

11. Average number of hours per week that an American and a Chinese person, respectively, spend shopping: 4, 10

12. Share of U.S. banks that have tightened terms on loans to large and mid-size companies: 84

13. Factor by which the amount of money borrowed by U.S. banks from the Fed in October 2008 exceeded what they borrowed six months earlier: 4,000

14. Change in Netflix rentals of the Depression movie The Grapes of Wrath” from September 2008 to October 2008: +10 percent

15. Change in sales rank on Barnes & Noble of The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith for same period: +20,000

16. Median price of a new home in the U.S. as of September 2008, the lowest since 2004: $218,400

17. Rank of the U.S. as a free-market economy in terms of openness to capital flows, low trade barriers, and absence of distortions from taxes and subsidies, respectively: 20, 21 and 35

18. Rank of Hong Kong on all three scales: 1

19. Number of private companies with revenues over $1 billion that had IPOs in the past 12 months: 3

20. Number in similar period last year: 15

21. Number of S&P 500 stocks that experienced peak-to-trough drops of 50 percent or more in the 10 years ending in May — before the worst of the credit crisis hit: 347

22. Percentage of Fortune 500 companies that own a web address in which their name is followed by “sucks.com”: 26

23. Number of complaints filed by corporate whistleblowers with U.S. workplace safety officials since 2002: 1,288

24. Number in which the government ruled in favor of the whistleblower: 17

25. Value of loose change recovered at U.S. airport security checkpoints since 2005: $1,050,371

26. Annual tuition at the Booth School at the University of Chicago, the number one business school, as ranked by Businessweek: $97,165

27. Percentage of Americans who can name all of Santa's reindeer: 25

Sources: 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library; 2-3 Steven Hall and Partners; 4-6 Fortune; 7 Bureau of Economic Analysis; 8 Standard and Poors; 9-10 Harpers; 11 McKinsey & Company; 12-13 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; 14 Netflix; 15 Barnes & Noble; 16 Commerce Department; 17-18 Global Competiveness Report; 19-20 Renaissance Capital; 21 SmartStops.net; 22 FairWinds Partners; 23-24 U.S. Department of Labor; 25 Department of Homeland Security; 26 Businessweek; 27 Harpers.