Between the November election and the end of 2016, the S&P 500 index gained 4.6%. Since the beginning of 2017, the index has added another 5.53%. The so-called Trump bump peaked at beginning of March, with both the S&P and the Dow Jones Industrial Average up around 7%. Any way you look at it, that’s a good start for the year and miles better than the dismal start to 2016.
But not every stock included in the S&P 500 shared in the wealth. For some the drop was based on poor performance, but that was not universally the case.
Can any of these stocks hope for a boost from promised changes to corporate tax rates or regulatory changes? Let’s just say it wouldn’t hurt, but other factors will have a bigger impact.
For now, though, let’s look at the five worst S&P 500 index performers for the first quarter.
Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) is down 34.1% year to date. Its biggest problem has been lack of investor confidence that the company will be able to continue paying its famously high dividend yield, which has swelled to nearly 20% as the share price has dived. The stock closed at $2.14 on Friday, up about 0.5% and in a 52-week range of $1.92 to $5.75.
Fossil Group Inc. (NASDAQ: FOSL) is down 32.5%. The watch company beat earnings estimates for the fourth quarter, but the outlook was terrible. The company is losing sales of traditional watches faster than it can replace them with smartwatches. Shares closed up about 1.4% on Friday, at $17.45 in a 52-week range of $15.79 to $44.11.
Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UAA) is down 31.9%. When the CEO of the athletic gear maker said that its fast growth would slow, he was quickly proved right by investors who ran away from the stock. The company’s Class C shares, trading under the ticker symbol UA, were also among the five worst performers on the S&P index for the quarter, but we left them out of this list in order to spread the joy. Under Armour’s stock closed down about 1.6% on Friday, at $19.78 in a 52-week range of $18.40 to $47.94.
L Brands Inc. (NYSE: LB) is down 27.7%. It is among the hardest hit of retail stocks in a sector that has been bashed during the first quarter. The stock closed down about 0.9% on Friday, at $47.10 in a 52-week range of $46.76 to $88.74.
Signet Jewelers Ltd. (NYSE: SIG) is down 26.3%. Shares had been trailing downward since the beginning of the year and then dropped sharply when subsidiary Sterling Jewelers was hit in late February with a class-action arbitration case of sexual harassment on behalf of 69,000 current and former female employees. Shares have recovered somewhat and closed at $69.27 on Friday, down nearly 2% for the day, in a 52-week range of $62.10 to $124.85.
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