Editor's Note: All information in this post is correct as of the close of markets on December 24, 2020.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, we think it is safe to say that from a stock market perspective it was Tesla's (NASDAQ 🙂 year.
At the start of the last week of 2020, the Palo Alto, California-based battery-powered car manufacturer's shares rose 691%, handily beating the other stocks listed on the and indices. stand.
Tesla & # 39; s cachet is and has been its quest to transform car transportation by replacing gasoline and diesel with battery power. After years of missing goals and production deadlines, it now appears to be stable.
Now, as in previous years, investors are buying Tesla CEO Elon Musk's ambition along with his vision. They believe in his growth story. And they pay more than 170 times the expected 12-month earnings for the stock.
The company's valuation of $ 627.3 billion is now greater than the combined market caps of Fiat Chrysler (NYSE :), Ford Motor (NYSE :), General Motors (NYSE :), Honda (NYSE :), Hyundai (OTC :), Nissan (OTC :), Peugeot (OTC :), Toyota (NYSE 🙂 and Volkswagen (OTC :).
It doesn't matter that Tesla & # 39; s 12-month lagging sales were $ 28.2 billion, compared to $ 115.8 billion for General Motors alone.
It could be argued that Tesla is an outlier, irresistible to investors large and small who see it as the transformative share of the decade. Just like Apple (NASDAQ 🙂 was when the iPhone became popular in the first decade of this century.
Tesla didn't join the S&P 500 until December 21, triggering billions of dollars in stock transactions for investors to rebalance their portfolios. But Tesla & # 39; s big gains also reflect some common themes around the winners and losers in a market that crashed earlier this year but is trading at near record levels.
NASDAQ 100 Stocks Lead The Gainers
For the winners, huge amounts of growth are involved in a limited number of sectors, notably technology and biotechnology. The NASDAQ 100 index, which focuses on those stocks, is up 45.5%, with about 84% of the stocks in the index showing gains. That's comparable to about 56% of the shares in the S&P 500 or the.
Moderna, (NASDAQ :), the Massachusetts biotech that developed a coronavirus vaccine now in use worldwide, has seen its stock jump 530% to $ 123.39, the second-best among NASDAQ 100 stocks .
Shares of Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ 🙂 are up 451%, the fourth best among NASDAQ 100 shares, as software developed for commercial users became indispensable to families and friends, as well as countless home workers under lockdown. circumstances due to pandemic health fears.
Aspiration and the ability to shop at home during lockdown also worked for some businesses. The second best S&P 500 performer in 2020 is Etsy (NASDAQ :), whose online marketplace lets people create, sell, buy, and collect unique items.
Stocks are up nearly 330%.
Platoon (NASDAQ :), whose fitness equipment is popular among those hoping to reduce tension and weight gained during the pandemic, is the third-best NASDAQ 00 performer, up 473%.
Stocks that enable consumers or businesses to conduct business safely have skyrocketed. Witness Okta (NASDAQ 🙂 and PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ :), up 139% and 120.6%, respectively.
Okta, the eighth best NASDAQ 100 executor, develops identity and access management to make networks more secure. PayPal, number 10 in the NASDAQ 100 and fourth in the S&P 500, facilitates online sales.
Big Tech Dominates Dow Winners; Energy, Travel Shares Losers in 2020
Among the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the two largest stocks this year are both big tech – Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ 🙂 – followed by the athletic equipment and apparel giant Nike (NYSE :). The trio is up 79.9%, 41.3% and 39.8% respectively.
The stock market losers in 2020 generally appear to be concentrated in energy and related areas and travel and leisure, sectors unable to take advantage of the Federal Reserve's massive interest rate cuts.
The West Texas Intermediate price, the benchmark, turned negative for the first time for one panicked day}} in April. With a close of $ 48.23 a barrel on Thursday, the WTI was still 21% lower this year.
Six of the 10 largest purchasing S&P 500 are energy companies, including Occidental Petroleum (NYSE 🙂 and Marathon Oil (NYSE :), down 57.1% and 51.2% respectively.
Price pressures hurt even the largest oil stocks. Chevron (NYSE 🙂 is the third worst Dow performer, down 29.4%. Exxon Mobil (NYSE 🙂 is down 40% and was completely removed from the Dow earlier this year, after 92 years on the 30-component index.
The pandemic was also crippling for airlines, hotels, restaurants, cinemas and live theater and entertainment venues.
Cruise ship operators Carnival Corporation (NYSE 🙂 and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE 🙂 are the two worst performing S&P 500 stocks this year, at 59% and 58% respectively. Royal Caribbean (NYSE 🙂 is the 10th worst, down 47.1% even with a gain of 9.2% in the fourth quarter in the hope that vaccines against the COVID-19 virus will soon be available worldwide .
Aviation giant Boeing (NYSE 🙂 was the weakest of the 30 Dow stocks, down 33.4% for the year due to struggles to get its 737 MAX back on the air, which also aided in the collapse of new airplane orders. The fourth quarter tells a different story. The aircraft has been recertified; there is hope that vaccines will lead to more travel. Boeing's shares are now up 33%.
In theory, stocks that have made huge gains this year, such as Tesla and Moderna, could fall or weaken in 2021, if only because their gains are so big and happened so quickly. And money can and will move quickly. More importantly, if the COVID-19 vaccines work and economies see a real resurgence, the demand for Peloton equipment or Zoom subscriptions may decline.
You can see that some stocks that jumped too much too fast are already coming back to Earth. Shares of Apple, Amazon.com (NASDAQ 🙂 and Microsoft peaked on September 2. Facebook (NASDAQ 🙂 and Netflix (NASDAQ: {{13063 | NFLX) peaked in July and August. None of them have come close to hitting new highs since then.
Still, they will end the year with gains of about 30% or much more – nothing to sneeze at, but certainly not where the biggest winners will end.
Here is the full list of top 10 winners and losers for each index:
S&P 500 2020 Winners & Losers
NASDAQ 100 2020 Winners and Losers
Dow 2020 Winners & Losers
