MARKET VEXATIONS

For much of the U.S. market 2015 was not a good year. With six of the 10 S&P 500 sectors down, however, the index was off just 0.7%, not all that bad. The market befuddled many throughout the year owing to the Fed's indecisive action, China and falling energy prices, to name a few of the year's market vexations.

So now it's off to 2016 and whatever vexations it has to offer. With that said: we wish all a good year ahead on all counts.

U.S. stocks had their worst annual performance since 2008, closing out a rocky year that tempered investors’ expectations for gains in 2016.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a basket of 30 stocks, lost 2.2% in 2015, while the broader S&P 500 fell 0.7%.

The S&P’s loss ended three years of double-digit gains for the index, but was far from the nearly 40% dive it took in 2008, a year of financial crisis.

The year wasn’t grim across the board. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 5.7%. Netflix and Amazon.com, the top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 in percentage terms, rose 134% and 118%, respectively. The consumer discretionary sector, which includes stocks such as Starbucks and Expedia, led the S&P 500 with an 8.4% gain.

But broadly, the market struggled. While an extended slump in commodity prices helped drag the stock market into negative territory this year, six of the 10 sectors in the S&P 500 posted losses. wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-set-to-close-year-with-a-whimper