Videogames and Two-Day Delivery Powered the S&P's Rise to 3,000

By Alexander Osipovich 

Tech stocks including Amazon.com and Netflix Inc. led the pack during the S&P 500's half-decade march from 2000 to 3000, while oil companies were among the laggards.

Making stock-market history -- or at least delighting financial-data nerds and people who like round numbers -- the S&P 500 briefly crested the 3000 level for the first time on Wednesday, though it later retreated and was recently at 2991.51.

The broad-based index first closed higher than 2000 on Aug. 26, 2014, a little over five years ago. When that happened, Barack Obama was president and "Breaking Bad" had just won a raft of Emmys for its final season.

Since then, the top performer in the S&P 500 has been Nvidia, the maker of computer chips used by videogamers and bitcoin miners, up 722%.

In second place is Amazon.com. Shares of the online-commerce giant that sells consumers everything from diapers to electronics and gets it to their doors in rapid fashion gained 489% and its market cap surged by $833 billion in that period.

Third-best is MarketAxess Holdings, a financial-technology company that climbed 486% on a rising tide of interest in electronic bond trading on Wall Street. After that comes Netflix, up 454%, and Take-Two Interactive Software, creator of hit videogame franchises like "Grand Theft Auto," up 423%.

The five S&P 500 constituents that fared the worst in that period -- while still managing to retain a spot in the index -- include three in the oil patch, reflecting the fact that crude prices collapsed in late 2014 and have yet to fully recover.

Oil-field services firm National Oilwell Varco was the worst performer in the S&P 500, plunging 74%, followed by oil producer Apache, down 73%.

Telecom company CenturyLink is the third-worst laggard in the index, with a 71% drop, showing the struggles of the so-called wireline business of laying telephone and internet lines, which has been marked by brutal competition for years.

Rounding out the five worst performers of the S&P 500 are two more commodities companies: copper miner Freeport-McMoRan, down 70%, and oil driller Noble Energy, down 69%.

Write to Alexander Osipovich at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 10, 2019 16:14 ET (20:14 GMT)

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