- U.S. Stocks Fall on Dubai Worries
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Halftime Report: Dubai - First Ripple Of Larger Crisis?
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Obama's Emission Reduction Pledge Paints Future for Autos
- Is Super Bowl Halftime Act Too Old?
- EA Sports Hopes to Pump Up Sales Through Pop-Up Locations
- 8 Retailers that Gain During the Holidays
- 4 Enemies of Bull Markets
- Experiencing Technical Difficulty?
RSS FEED
Text Size 
The financial crisis and market turmoil of 2008 have prevented many historical trends from holding true this year. For instance, while November and December are typically two of the markets’ strongest months of the year, the performance during those months this year has been far from stellar.
The Dow [.DJIA
Loading...
()
] fell over 5% in November and is on pace for another 5% drop in December. This follows the index’s 14% plunge back in October. In fact, posting a decline in each of the final three months of the year is something the Dow has not done since 1941. For the fourth quarter, the Dow is down 22% - giving it its worst quarter since Q4 1987, when Black Monday struck.
However, one trend that appears to be holding up (at least early on) is the tendency for small cap stocks to outperform large caps during the so-called “January Effect” period (from the middle of December through the month of January). Since 1987, during the last half of December, the Stock Trader’s Almanac shows that the small cap Russell 2000 index rose 3.2%, on average, vs. the large cap Russell 1000 index’s average gain of just 1.7%. The small cap outperformance is evident this year too – since December 15, the Russell 2000 [.RUT
Loading...
()
] is up nearly 3% compared to the flat/breakeven performance of the Russell 1000 [.RUI
Loading...
()
].
As the markets wrap up the year, the Dow (down 36% YTD) is poised for its worst year since 1931. Only 2 of its components are up this year:
- Wal-Mart [WMT
Loading...
()
] up +16% YTD
- McDonald’s [MCD
Loading...
()
] up +2% YTD
GM [GM
Loading...
()
], Citigroup [C
Loading...
()
], Alcoa [AA
Loading...
()
], Bank of America [BAC
Loading...
()
], and American Express [AXP
Loading...
()
] are down -86%, -78%, -73%, -69% and -66% respectively and have been the weakest on the year.
Here’s how some of the other major indices and sectors have performed this year:
- These four sectors will be the next to lead the market.
- Zhu Zhu Pets are this year's must-have toy, fetching $40 or more on eBay.
- From the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that file, we present Jason Sadler, a man whose job is wearing T-shirts.
- It may be the most unusual guide to business you'll read.
- Shopping for a gadget hound? The choices can be baffling. Here are a few that should be a hit.
- "The Who" will be the halftime act for Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7 in Miami. Is the NFL behind the times?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes