FACTBOX: How U.S. stocks fared in raucous third quarter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Few equity investors will be sorry to see the third quarter of 2008 end, Tuesday's big rally notwithstanding.

Over the course of the past three months, a steady grind of bad news on Wall Street led to the most dramatic reshaping of the financial landscape since the Great Depression.

Venerable Wall Street titans such as Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch disappeared while one-time stars in the regional banking constellation were shut down or forced into sales. Government activism spiked as authorities were forced to bail out American International Group and fully nationalize home finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The coup de grace came on the penultimate day of the quarter when the House of Representatives shocked markets and rejected a $700 billion financial rescue package that would have let Treasury mop up toxic mortgage debt from bank balance sheets in an effort to get them lending again.

The Dow plunged nearly 800 points on that day, its biggest one-day slide ever, and posted its largest percentage decline since the 1987 stock market crash.

Following is snapshot of the quarter:

* The benchmark S&P 500 index fell 9 percent in the July-September period, its fourth straight quarterly decline -- its longest quarterly losing streak since the dot-com bubble bust from 2000 into 2001.

* The Dow Jones industrials average, on the other hand, was down a more modest 4.4 percent in the third quarter. That actually stacks up as its best quarterly showing since last year's third quarter. Like the S&P, the Dow, too, has now dropped for four quarters in a row -- its longest quarterly down streak since 1977-1978.

* The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 9.2 percent on the quarter, its worst since the first three months of the year when it fell 14.1 percent.

* MSCI's main world stock index fell 17.1 pct on the quarter, its biggest quarterly slide since the third quarter of 2002, when it lost 18.6 percent.

* MSCI's benchmark emerging market equities index fell 27.5 pct on the quarter, its worst quarterly performance ever.

* The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index closed at a record high of 46.72 on September 29 and rose 64.5 pct on the quarter, the biggest increase since the third quarter of 2001, when the collapsing internet bubble pushed it up 67.5 percent.

* Financial stocks, incredibly, have had far worse quarters. The S&P financial index ended almost exactly unchanged -- shedding a mere 0.27 of a point, or 0.1 percent, for its best performance since the second quarter of 2007. That's a remarkable turn around for a group that stood at an 11-year low back in July. Still, that's the group's longest quarterly losing streak since at least 1983.

* Energy shares posted their worst quarter since at least 1989 as commodity prices fell. The S&P energy index fell nearly 25 percent. That's a big fall from grace after starting the quarter by rivaling technology as the heftiest sector by market capitalization.