For the year 2008, the Dow fell 33.8 percent; the S&P skidded 38.5 percent; and the Nasdaq posted its worst year ever, with a 40.5 percent drop.
Below is the table for the top 10 best performers for the year in the S&P 500 index,
in terms of percentage gains from Reuters. Are they really recession-proof?
WINNERS
Company Pct change
Family Dollar Stores Inc (FDO.N) 35.6
UST Inc (UST.N) 26.6
Amgen (AMGN.O) 24.4
H&R Block Inc (HRB.N) 22.4
Celgene Corp (CELG.O) 19.6
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) 18.0
Rohm & Hass Co (ROH.N) 16.4
Autozone Inc (AZO.N) 16.3
Hasbro Inc (HAS.N) 14.0
Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) 11.2
The short term outlook still does not look too bright even though the stock market ended with a high note at the very last session today. According to the latest Commitments of Traders report., the commercial traders (usually correct) has short position of -$15 million, and the non-commercial traders (always wrong) has long position of $5 million which tells us that we still have at least one dip to come in January, 2009.
S&P 500 STOCK INDEX - CHICAGO MERCANTILE EXCHANGE Code-138741
OPTION AND FUTURES COMBINED POSITIONS AS OF 12/22/08 |
--------------------------------------------------------------| NONREPORTABLE
NON-COMMERCIAL | COMMERCIAL | TOTAL | POSITIONS
--------------------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------
Long | Short |Spreads | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(S&P 500 INDEX X $250.00) OPEN INTEREST: 588,254
COMMITMENTS
44,307 22,556 28,070 398,499 461,142 470,875 511,768 117,379 76,486
CHANGES FROM 12/16/08 (CHANGE IN OPEN INTEREST: -397,906)
-18,378 -23,414 -41,360 -289,921 -311,698 -349,659 -376,473 -48,246 -21,433
PERCENT OF OPEN INTEREST FOR EACH CATEGORY OF TRADER
7.5 3.8 4.8 67.7 78.4 80.0 87.0 20.0 13.0
NUMBER OF TRADERS IN EACH CATEGORY (TOTAL TRADERS: 165)
37 18 33 86 70 136 108