The Few, The Proud, The Stocks Above Pre-Lehman Levels

With nearly one year having passed since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, we looked to see how many stocks have had a positive return since September 12th, 2008. Looking at the current members of the S&P 500 (500 stocks), 55 names in the index have registered gains since last September, and less than half of those (27) have seen double-digit returns. While only 27 stocks are up more than 10%, 374 are currently down more than 10%, and 33 of those are still down by more than 50%. Overall, the average stock in the S&P 500 is down 21.6% since 9/12/08.

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Comments

[Robert Mart...:]

BIG:

Interesting update. The winners since the Lehman collapse include six tech stocks, three pharma, three auto, and a smattering of others. My observations:

1) 6 Technology (Telllabs, Micron, Western Digital, Nvidia, Expedia, Cognizant): Tech is a high beta sector, and will always have some outliers that prove to be winners. None of these firms is a tech bell-wether, though, so their success does not have coat-tails for others in the industry to ride upon. These firms are outliers.

2) 3 Autos (Autonation, Ford, O'Reilly Auto): Government bailout for auto industry.

3) 3 Pharma (Schering-Plough, Wyeth, and Mylan): SGP and WYE are merger beneficiaries, while Mylan has benefitted from generic drug approvals and strong guidance. Upward revisions look bullish: finance.yahoo.com/news...

4) 2 Consumer (Whole Foods & Starbucks): These are two high-end franchises that should NOT have prospered during a consumer slowdown. But both firms have adapted: Starbucks by cutting stores and trimming the menu, and Whole Foods by refocusing on its original customer base.

Thanks for the update.
Rob

Aug 17 05:00 PM