U.S. stocks polished off their worst year since 2008 with a loss on Friday, bringing the year-to-date decline for the S&P 500 to 19.4%, its largest calendar-year drop since 2008, Dow Jones Market Data show. The same holds true for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which shed 8.8% this year, and the Nasdaq Composite, which lost 33.1%. On Friday, as stocks pared their losses heading into the close on the last session of the year, the S&P 500 SPX fell 9.78 points, or 0.2%, to finish at 3,839.50, while the Nasdaq Composite COMP fell 11.61 points, or 0.1%, to 10,466.48, and the Dow DJIA fell 73.55 points, or 0.2%, to 33,147.25. 2022 also marked the fourth-worst year for the S&P 500 since its inception in 1957. The only years where stocks fared worse were 2002, 1974 and 2008, according to DJMD. As previously high-flying megacap technology stocks and other interest-rate sensitive assets crumbled, value stocks outperformed this year, sending the Dow to its biggest calendar-year outperformance vs. the Nasdaq since 2000. The blue-chip gauge also recorded its biggest outperformance vs. the S&P 500 since the index’s creation. Energy stocks were a lone bright spot, as the S&P 500 energy sector recorded its best year on record with a 59% gain.
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