Taking stock of US stocks
US stock markets aren't having a good start to the year. In the S&P 500 index — which oddly actually has 505 members — 131 stocks are in the green in 2022, compared to 374 in the red. Among the worst performing stocks are some big names including Netflix (down 42%), Meta (-44%), Moderna (-50%) and PayPal (-50%).
The energy exception
All told the index itself is down a little over 13% this year, with every single sector in the red — except energy, which is now up 40% for the year thanks to rising oil and gas prices.
That trend is unlikely to significantly reverse itself anytime soon given the news yesterday that both the US and UK are set to ban or phase out Russian imports of petroleum products. This week gas prices in the US touched the record high from 2008 of $4.10 per gallon.
