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Survivors Emerge Amid Market Debris
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Wal-Mart shares gained 18 percent in 2008, while McDonald's rose 5.6 percent.
"People are going to cut back where it's easier to cut," said Jeffrey Schappe, who helps manage $16 billion as chief investment officer at BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, N.C. "But they still have to buy groceries and clothing, and with clothing they'll buy clothes that are less trendy and more of a value."
A short squeeze, or rally caused by investors closing out bearish bets, made Volkswagen AG the only stock in Germany's DAX Index to gain.
The automaker, which briefly overtook Exxon Mobil in October to become the world's largest company by market value, surged 60 percent as Porsche SE announced plans to boost its stake to 75 percent. That forced short sellers to buy stock to replace the borrowed shares they sold.
"Volkswagen was a real standout moment for us," said Martin Slaney, head of derivatives trading at GFT Global Markets in London. "For a while it was our most-traded security."
In the United States, 62 out of the 68 level 3 industry groups in the S&P 500 declined in 2008.
"It was basically an environment of indiscriminate selling," said Mark Freeman, a Dallas-based money manager at Westwood Management, which oversees $7.5 billion including shares of Wal-Mart and McDonald's. "What people were looking for was stability. They were also looking for some visibility and clarity from an earnings standpoint."
Adam Haigh in London contributed to this report.
