Bad Run for US Stocks

Thanks to a powerful rally that began on March 10 and continues until today with only small ‘breaks’, Wall Street is heading for impressive annual profits. Looking, however, at overall performance of the first decade of the 21st century, reaching a few days to an end, investors will probably feel disappointed. Satisfaction can feel only those who chose to invest in sectors such as energy and raw materials, which stood plywood to the negative current.

The American index S & P 500 is currently around 10% lower than its closure in 1999. Even if we exclude the dividends that were reinvested, the losses reach 25%. The period 2000-2009 has therefore become the first decade in the history of the U.S. market with a negative review. Even the 30s, which followed the “crash” of October 1929 and was marked by the Great Depression, had positive total returns, including dividends “that absorbed” some of the vibration.

Over the last decade, however, there were several attacks: the breaking of the bubble in technology stocks in 2000, terrorist attacks in 2001 and the worst financial crisis of the last seventy years, that plunged the U.S. economy since December 2007 in recession.

According to Reuters, S & P Telecom index had average annual loss of 10.04%, while the second worst performance recorded by the industry of information technology (IT) with an average annual decline 7.76%. Negative is the account (-5%) for the financial industry, primarily because of a disastrous 2008.

In contrast the big winners of the decade 2000-2009 are energy companies, whose annual profits reached an average of 7.18% (reaching even to 9.38% when adjusted for dividends). Average annual increase of 2.75% was the industry of basic consumer goods, and 2% was the average yield of industry raw materials.

It is worth noting that the immediately preceding decade (1990-1999) was one of the best ever on Wall Street. And the ten sectors that decade had positive performance, with technology stocks to exhibit an average annual profit of about 30% and 16% of financial institutions. It might turn out to be both a glorious or a bad year for fx brokers as the market is presenting anomalies which present both assets and misses.