Investing
Ralph Lauren, SanDisk, Chesapeake Lead the 2015 Worst S&P 500 Stocks
March 28, 2015 9:45 am
Last Updated: March 28, 2015 9:48 am
This past week was yet another one that took some of the charge out of the bulls. The Dow posted marginal gains on Friday, but this week’s drop ticked the Dow ever so slightly into the red for 2015. The close of 17,712.66 put the index down 0.6% year to date. The S&P 500 index closed up almost five points at 2,061.02 on Friday, giving the S&P’s year-to-date return as a whopping 0.1% for 2015.Source: Thinkstock
24/7 Wall St. wanted to highlight the worst large stocks of the year. The S&P 500 is more widely representative of the economy than the Dow, so we have highlighted the worst year-to-date performers of the index.
Some of the losers are just what you would expect: energy with four of the 10 laggards, and three in technology. Interestingly enough, three of the biggest losers of the S&P 500 for 2015 have lagging consumer themes that you just might not have expected.
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SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) has had its problems with guidance of late, and the move to SSDs and flash memory is currently passing SanDisk by. Its most recent close of $64.59 gave it a year-to-date performance of -33.83%. SanDisk has warned enough now that investors cannot trust the estimates. It still is valued at 14 times those consensus 2015 estimates as well. That may be cheap to the broad S&P indices, but that isn’t cheap compared to other big tech stocks that are having problems. SanDisk has a 52-week trading range of $63.56 to $108.77 and a consensus analyst price target of $82.66 — although that consensus target is rapidly coming down.
Ralph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL) was shocking to see on the list. Perhaps its U.S. pricing is making it harder to sell the goods now, but much of Ralph Lauren’s materials and manufacturing is outside of the United States. The higher-end apparel shares are now down 28.87% so far in 2015. Its $131.22 close compares to a 52-week range of $127.29 to $187.49. Ralph Lauren also has a consensus price target of $148.95.
Ensco PLC (NYSE: ESV) is the third largest loser of the S&P year to date, but it is the worst performing of all S&P 500 stocks tied to oil and gas. Trading at $21.28, its share performance is -28.49% so far in 2015. Ensco has a 52-week range of $19.78 to $55.89 and a consensus price target of $26.48. Its market cap of $5 billion makes it smaller than many large oil and gas players in the red this year.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) may no longer have Aubrey McClendon to kick around and blame for its woes, but it is the fourth biggest loser of the S&P. Its focus on natural gas just cannot escape the current oil and gas sector climate. With shares at $14.03, its market cap is now down to $9.3 billion. Chesapeake has a 52-week trading range of $13.38 to $29.92 and a consensus target price of $18.84.
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