Videogames and Two-Day Delivery Powered the S&P's Rise to 3000 -- Update
July 10 2019 - 5:56PM
Dow Jones News
By Alexander Osipovich
Tech stocks including Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. led the
pack during the S&P 500's half-decade march from 2000 to 3000,
while oil companies were among the laggards.
Making stock-market history -- or at least delighting
financial-data nerds and people who like round numbers -- the
S&P 500 briefly crested the 3000 level for the first time on
Wednesday, though it later retreated and closed at 2993.07.
The broad-based index first closed higher than 2000 on Aug. 26,
2014, a little over five years ago. When that happened, Barack
Obama was president and "Breaking Bad" had just won a raft of Emmys
for its final season.
Since then, the top performer in the S&P 500 has been
medical-device company Abiomed, up 892%. After that are two
semiconductor companies: Nvidia, the maker of computer chips used
by videogamers and bitcoin miners, up 723%, and Advanced Micro
Devices, up 706%.
In fourth place is Amazon.com. Shares of the online-commerce
giant that sells consumers everything from diapers to electronics
and gets it to their doors in rapid fashion gained 490% and its
market cap surged by $835 billion in that period.
Fifth-best is MarketAxess Holdings, a financial-technology
company that climbed 487% on a rising tide of interest in
electronic bond trading on Wall Street. After that come Netflix, up
456%, and Take-Two Interactive Software, creator of hit videogame
franchises like "Grand Theft Auto," up 425%.
The five S&P 500 constituents that fared the worst in that
period -- while still managing to retain a spot in the index --
include three in the oil patch, reflecting the fact that crude
prices collapsed in late 2014 and have yet to fully recover.
Oil-field services firm National Oilwell Varco was the worst
performer in the S&P 500, plunging 74%, followed by oil
producer Apache, down 73%.
Telecom company CenturyLink is the third-worst laggard in the
index, with a 71% drop, showing the struggles of the so-called
wireline business of laying telephone and internet lines, which has
been marked by brutal competition for years.
Rounding out the five worst performers of the S&P 500 are
two more commodities companies: copper miner Freeport-McMoRan, down
70%, and oil driller Noble Energy, down 69%.
Write to Alexander Osipovich at
alexander.osipovich@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 10, 2019 17:41 ET (21:41 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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