U.S. stocks post worst annual losses since 2008
Posted on January 1, 2016 at 10:57 am
Leslie Josephs, WSJ
U.S. stocks had their worst annual performance since 2008, closing out a rocky year that tempered investors’ expectations for gains in 2016.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a basket of 30 stocks, lost 2.2% in 2015, while the broader S&P 500 fell 0.7%.
The S&P’s loss ended three years of double-digit gains for the index, but was far from the nearly 40% dive it took in 2008, a year of financial crisis.
The year wasn’t grim across the board. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 5.7%. Netflix and Amazon.com, the top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 in percentage terms, rose 134% and 118%, respectively. The consumer discretionary sector, which includes stocks such as Starbucks and Expedia, led the S&P 500 with an 8.4% gain.
But broadly, the market struggled. While an extended slump in commodity prices helped drag the stock market into negative territory this year, six of the 10 sectors in the S&P 500 posted losses.
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http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/01/01/u-s-stocks-post-worst-annual-losses-since-2008/
