"U.S. Stocks Finish Best Quarter in More Than 20 Years" - yet another extraordinary period worthy of documenting in some detail. The S&P 500 returned 20.5%, led by energy companies Halliburton (HAL) (up 89.5%) and Marathon Oil (MRO) (86.2%). The Dow Jones Transports returned 19.2%, with Avis Budget (CAR) gaining 64.7% and Ryder (R) rising 41.9%. Lagging, the NYSE Financial Index returned 13.1%. Goldman Sachs (GS) rallied 27.1% during the quarter.
The broader market outperformed. S&P 400 Midcap and small-cap Russell 2000 indices returned 24.1% and 25.4%. There were 155 companies in the Russell 2000