Dow Produces Few Winners in November

The stock market fell once again in November, despite the strong rally late in the month. The Dow lost 496 points or 5.3% and the Nasdaq lost 185 points for an incredible 10.8% drop. This was the Nasdaq’s third consecutive month of double-digit percentage losses. The S&P 500 index fell 73 points or 7.5%.

The extreme volatility in the markets led to 16 out of the 19 trading days producing triple-digit moves in the Dow index. The Dow fell over 400 points on five different days, but managed to gain over 300 points on four other days. Fortunately, the markets finished with gains on the last five trading days, pushing the Dow up almost 1300 points in that rally. Within the Dow Jones Index, 21 stocks posted losses for the month, while only 9 posted gains.

Winners

The top Dow performer was Verizon Communications (VZ), which posted a 10% gain for the month. The company indicated that they were seeing strong demand for the Blackberry Storm (RIMM). While the Storm likely won’t see the popularity of the rival iPhone, at least now Verizon has a product that can compete with AT&T (T). Stabilizing oil prices helped Exxon Mobil (XOM) post an 8% gain for the month. While Caterpillar (CAT), AT&T and Coca Cola (KO) all posted gains of over 6%.

Losers

Once again the financials were the big losers of the Dow. Citigroup (C) ended the month with a 39% drop, and it took a big rally to even get there. On November 21, the stock closed below $4 per share – down over 70% for the month. Hopefully, Citigroup investors said a word of thanks for the Fed’s intervention while they celebrated Thanksgiving.

The lack of confidence in financial stocks was felt by the other big banks as well. Bank of America (BAC) fell 33%, while JPMorgan (JPM) dropped 23%. Many investors seem to just be throwing up their hands in despair. No one believes banks anymore when they say that they have plenty of capital. And no one knows how many more write-offs remain to be made before the balance sheets of these companies are trustworthy once again.

Other big losers included DuPont (DD), Boeing (BA) and American Express (AXP), all losing over 15%.

Disclosure: no positions