Almost exactly one year ago, the S&P 500 reached its 2018 high, and then promptly spent the next three months falling by 20%. Steel stocks took an even bigger beating. Betwen Oct. 3 and Dec. 24, 2019, AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) lost 56% of its value, and even a stalwart like Nucor (NYSE: NUE) saw its stock price fall more than 23%, with peers including Commercial Metals Co., Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ: STLD), and U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) falling somewhere in between.
A year removed and the S&P 500 has more than made up for the crash that ended last year, while steel stocks have continued to underperform; several have seen their share prices fall even further than where they were on Christmas Eve.
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