The 12 Craziest Market Stories Of 2014

But before we can look forward to another year in the markets, it is time to look back on the craziest things that happened in the past year. 

We're not talking about the boring stuff: the Fed ending quantitative easing, the markets' mini-meltdown October, or the unexpected double-digit full-year gains that almost no one saw coming.

We're talking about the weird stories that we can't forget about. A penny stock saw its market-cap balloon to $5 billion, a company went public and then un-public, and a Chinese footwear company saw all of its money disappear over a weekend. 

And while all of these stories are wild in their own right, we've ranked them from "least crazy" to "most crazy": all rankings are relative.