Sunday, January 1, 2006

Stocks

The closing bell clanked Friday, ending a lackadaisical and lackluster year for the stock market. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained just 36 points over the past 12 months. The 3 percent gain was less than investors could have gotten from a certificate of deposit or a government bond, both of which are paying better than 4 percent.

And the S&P looked good compared with other measures of the market. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the year down 66 points at 10,717.50, a 0.6 percent loss. The Nasdaq Stock Market composite index advanced 30 points to 2205.32, a 1.4 percent gain. It was the smallest in annual moves -- in either direction -- in decades for both indexes.

While Wall Street strategists had urged their clients to hop aboard a "Santa Claus rally," the traders who rule the market used 2005's last week to cash in what paltry profits they could.

The result was that instead of climbing as they usually do after Christmas, stock prices pulled back sharply from the highs they reached earlier, leaving investors to hope for a better year ahead.

-- Jerry Knight