(Finance) – 2022 can be framed as a year to forget for the American stock market with the indices preparing to close the bad first year after three consecutive up and the worst since 2008that of the financial crisis caused by subprime mortgages.
The year that is about to close was characterized by persistent inflation and the highest in the last 40 years and by an aggressive rise in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. The US central bank’s restrictive stance weighed heavily on technology stocks and investors’ hopes of a miraculous recovery were dashed.
The story of 2022 was energy
But even when the overall market is losing money, there are still winners – and there were quite a few this year – especially in energy, which was the sector with the best performance of 2022.
Sharply high oil and gas prices have been a major factor in driving inflation to skyrocket, but at the same time have benefited the energy industry as crude oil prices and energy stocks are closely interlinked.
The energy sector has so far returned over 60% this year, significantly outperforming every other S&P 500 sector. In fact, other benchmarks have gained less than 5% year-to-date.
In the basket, it highlights Western Petroleum which brings home a 122% increase since the beginning of the year. It follows with a +109% Constellation Energy while third place is won by him hess with a 94% gain. To complete the top ten there are marathon petroleum, Exxon, Schlumberger, APA extension, First Solar, Halliburton and Marathon oilall between about +70 and +80% this year.
In recent weeks, gas and oil prices have fallen, but are still higher than they have been in recent years. This has contributed to record profits at major energy companies. The net income of global oil and gas producers is expected to double in 2022 to a record $4 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the third quarter, 81 percent of all energy companies in the S&P 500 posted better-than-expected earnings, the highest of any sector, according to Factset data. The energy sector had the highest year-over-year earnings growth of all 11 sectors, at 137.3%.
Who lost? In the list of the last 10 stocks also Tesla and Meta (Facebook)
The sector of Big Tech it has reached new heights over the past decade, thanks to low interest rates and subdued inflation, but that is no longer the case, and the prices of technology and communications stocks clearly reflect this.
The energy technology solutions company Generac Holdings is the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 this year, down about 74%. In second place is the dating app company Match Groups (-70%). Also Tesla Of Elon Musk it is down about 70%, making the automotive technology company the third worst performer this year. Also Halfthe parent company of Facebook, appears in the last ten titles, with a decrease of 65%. The latter two companies were considered to be the sixth most valuable company in the S&P 500 and fifth, respectively.
Also Applegenerally considered more resilient than other tech companies, is down 31%, more than the overall market in 2022.
Insiders are hoping for a tech rebound next year, but with more interest rate hikes on the way and a possible recession, their expectations may be dashed.