Study: So far this year, nowhere to hide from bear

Published Wed, Jan 20 20162:34 PM ESTUpdated Wed, Jan 20 20163:49 PM EST

Patti Domm @in/patti-domm-9224884/@pattidomm

High yield, no yield, loved by Wall Street or hated, every kind of stock has been pretty much slammed this year — leaving no place for equity investors to hide. Bespoke Investment Group dissected the names in the S & P 500 to see if it could glean which kind of stocks (value, growth, etc.) led this year's declines, but it found just about everything in the index was off by 7 percent or more. It released a snapshot of its market findings Tuesday with the S & P 500 down 8.9 percent for the year. "There's nowhere holding up right now," said Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke. "You wouldn't expect much to be doing well but every is down close to 7 percent or more." Bespoke looked at 10 groups of 50 stocks each based on such criteria as price to earnings, yield, analysts' ratings, institutional ownership, international revenue and 2015 performance. Read More How to tell a bull market correction from a bear market For instance, the largest market cap stocks outperformed but they were still down 7.1 percent year to date, while the smallest market cap stocks in the S & P 500 have declined 12 percent. The stocks with the highest dividends are down 8.4 percent compared with the stocks with no yield — off 11.5 percent. Stocks with the most international revenue are down 11.6 percent, nearly double those with no foreign revenues, which have declined 6.8 percent this year. Stocks that gained the most in 2015 were down 7.5 percent since the start of year compared with last year's worst performers, which are off 5.5 percent. Interestingly, stocks that analysts rate the best have dropped 10.3 percent, while the stocks with the worst ratings are down 7.5 percent. Stocks with the lowest short interest were off 7.7 percent, versus those with the most are down 13.5 percent. As for valuation — the lowest P/E stocks are down 11.6 percent, about the same as those with the highest, which have fallen 12.8 percent. Those in the middle were down 6 and 7 percent. That looks like sellers dumping already slammed energy names, with low P/Es along with some of the priciest names in the portfolio.

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

High yield, no yield, loved by Wall Street or hated, every kind of stock has been pretty much slammed this year — leaving no place for equity investors to hide.

Bespoke Investment Group dissected the names in the S&P 500 to see if it could glean which kind of stocks (value, growth, etc.) led this year's declines, but it found just about everything in the index was off by 7 percent or more. It released a snapshot of its market findings Tuesday with the S&P 500 down 8.9 percent for the year.

"There's nowhere holding up right now," said Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke. "You wouldn't expect much to be doing well but every is down close to 7 percent or more."