The poor performance of stock pickers, as in active fund managers and jerkoffs like me, has been widely attributed to 0% interest rates. Most of the journalism and commentary that I read about it seems to imply with rates nailed to the floor, there is no dispersion of returns in risk assets, therefore making it nearly impossible for a stock picker to beat the market. And that's the excuse that I will use to allow myself to go out for drinks after such a dismal year. See you randomistas at the bar tonight!
At the end of 2013, I put together a list of underperforming stocks to see if the losers in such a big year would rally. I didn't keep a very close eye on it throughout the year, and when I checked it tonight there were only five stocks in it. I could have sworn there were more stocks in it when I put it together, maybe some of them went bust and were deleted from the database. At any rate, the ag chems were the dogs of 2013 and they did not rally this year. Shouldn't plunging oil prices have some type of effect on these stocks? Don't they use petroleum in their products? It looks like manufacturing stocks (and of course the oil patch too, but I avoid oil stocks) are the dogs of this year and I will put together a list of them to watch for next year.