After ups and downs, stocks end flat for ’11

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The stock market ended a tumultuous year right where it started.

In the final tally, despite big climbs and falls, unexpected blows and surprising triumphs, all the hullabaloo proved for naught. On Friday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed at 1,257.60. That’s exactly 0.04 point below where it started the year.

“If you fell asleep January 1 and woke up today, you’d think nothing had happened,” says Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of Harris Private Bank. “But it’s been up and down all year. It’s been crazy.”

It was a year when U.S. companies were supposed to run out of ways to make big profits. But they didn’t, and in fact generated more than ever. It was a year when the U.S. lost its prized triple-A credit rating, which should have spooked buyers of its bonds. Instead, investors bought more of them and made Treasurys one of the best bets of 2011. It was a year when stocks caught fire, then collapsed to near bear-market lows.

Among stocks, there were some surprising winners. Scaredy-cat investors who bought the most conservative and dullest of stocks — utilities — gained 15 percent this year, the biggest price rise of the 10 industry sectors in the S&P 500. Other winning groups were consumer staples, up 11 percent, and health-care companies, 10 percent.