US stocks edge lower; S&P 500 closer to red for the year

Stocks closed out 2015 on a downbeat note.

The blue-chip Dow dropped 178.84 points (1.02 per cent) to 17,425.03, to take its annual loss to 2.2 per cent. The S&P 500 index shed 10 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 2,052.

The year wasn’t grim across the board.

The consumer discretionary sector, on the other hand, was the SP’s best performer, rising 8.43 per cent thanks to Netflix’s 134 per cent increase and Amazon’s 118 per cent surge.

GAINERS & LOSERS: DTE Energy declined the most among companies in the S&P 500, shedding $1.44, or 1.8 percent, to $80.10.

But broadly, the market struggled.

Energy stocks were by far the laggard among industrial sectors, falling almost 24 per cent for the year, according to preliminary figures from S&P Capital IQ. Please see our terms of service for more information.

The Dow industrials will need to rise 219.20 points on Thursday just to break even on the year. The sector itself rose 4.3%, outperforming the S&P 500.

The Nasdaq Composite was 0.53 percent lower at 5,039.04.

Shares in Europe mostly performed well in 2015, but many investors had expected sharper gains. In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index ended up 9.4% in a roller-coaster year in which the index plunged over 40% in late August. We’ve had some attempts to rally and some attempts to drop, but it’s been a pretty frustrating year for trading. It’s the first down year for the Dow since 2008.

Considerable weakness was also visible among utilities stocks, as reflected by the 1.1 percent loss posted by the Dow Jones Utilities Average.

Brent settled at $37.28 a barrel for its third-straight year of decline.

– The Bloomberg Commodity index fell 25%, its fifth consecutive year of declines.

Eight of the 10 worst performers on the SP this year were energy companies, led by Chesapeake Energy’s 77 per cent slump.

– The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond exchange-traded fund, the largest junk-bond ETF by assets, fell 10%.

Precious and industrial metals prices ended mixed.

“I think this is going to be a short-lived bounce in energy prices”, said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth.

“It was a year of two phases, but in the end was a little disappointing, ” said Mr. Gijsels. That’s the worst return since 2008 and down sharply down from the 13.7 percent it returned in 2014.

Longer term, Apple remains a boost for the index.

The rout in commodities has sent markets across the world reeling as oil prices were hit by an unprecedented global glut that may take another year to clear. It lost 2.1% for 2015.

Still, Kenny said for all the turmoil in the markets this year, including global-economic uncertainty after China’s surprise devaluation of the yuan, another debt standoff in Greece, and diverging worldwide central bank policies, the major averages in the USA were within striking distance of record highs. The dollar fell to 120.08 yen from 120.55 yen, while the euro fell to $1.0872 from $1.0924.