U.S. Equity Market Ended the Year Unchanged

The U.S. stock market just ended the year almost unchanged. On the final trading day, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed at 1,257.60 with a 0.4 percent loss for the day. The S&P 500, a benchmark index for the U.S. broad equity market, statistically unchanged for the year, from 1,257.64 on Dec. 31, 2010 to 1,257.60 on Dec. 30, 2011, which is just 4 ticks difference or  a decline of 0.003% for the year.

Meanwhile the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.6 percent on the final day and was up 5.5 percent for the year, closing at 12,217.56.

The S&P 500 capped its smallest annual change since 1947. The index started the year with a rally, rising as much as 8.4 percent to a three-year high by the end of April and extending its rebound from a March 2009 bear-market low to 102 percent.

Throughout the summer as Congress and President Barack Obama struggled over U.S. deficit cuts, the S&P 500 tumbled and sank further amid concern that Europe’s debt crisis was threatening the global economic recovery. The index fell as much as 19 percent from April to its low for the year on Oct. 3, which date the S&P 500’s price- earnings multiple reached the lowest level in more than two years, falling to 11.6, a 27 percent decline from its high in February of 15.8.

Financial shares have fallen the most among the 10 main industries in the S&P 500 this year, losing 18 percent as a group, followed by a decline of 12 percent in raw-material producers. Conversely, utilities, consumer-staples providers and health-care companies, among stocks considered the least sensitive to economic prospects, rose at least 10 percent for the top gains.