There are some BIG names in bear territory right now.
And the list of bear-market stocks keeps growing every day, as the Dow Jones Industrial DJIA, -2.11% , the S&P 500 SPX, -2.08% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -2.27% mark their worst start to December trading since 1980.
A correction is typically defined as a 10% drop for a stock or an index from a recent peak, while a bear market is a 20%-plus decrease. Data supplied by FactSet show that, as of the end of last week, 264 (53%) of S&P 500 companies are in bear markets.
With stocks closing down another 500 points on Monday and investors seriously on edge, that 53% may well keep ticking up as the week presses on.
The Dow is also on the verge of joining the S&P 500 in a so-called death cross, where the 50-day moving average — a short-term trend tracker — crosses below the 200-day moving average. Chart watchers believe that such a cross marks the point where a shorter-term decline graduates to a longer-term downtrend. The S&P 500 formed the death-cross pattern earlier in December, and a slew of other highly watched stocks have done the same over the past few months: Facebook FB, -2.69% back in September, Netflix NFLX, -1.51% and Alphabet GOOG, -2.45% GOOGL, -2.48% in November, Amazon AMZN, -4.46% just last week, and Apple AAPL, -0.93% is looking like it will also cross this week.
As of the close on Monday, the FAANG stocks all make the list of biggest bears — among the top 15 S&P 500 companies that are down 20%-plus from their 52-week highs. Some of the other big names rounding out that list: Citigroup C, -1.40% , IBM IBM, -3.17% , Wells Fargo WFC, +0.15% , Bank of America BAC, -0.04% , AT&T T, -1.19% and Home Depot HD, -2.51% .
Among the broad indices, the S&P Small Cap 600 SML, -2.34% is still the only one in bear-market territory — though the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index MID, -2.22% is getting closer, at 17% down from its 52-week high.
Though the Dow and S&P remain firmly in the correction zone, not bear territory, many of the market watchers, movers and shakers who like to comment on such things are already calling the death of the decade-long bull run, and the onset of a bear market (most recently, bond king Jeff Gundlach).
