Earlier today, we highlighted the best performing S&P 1500 stocks since the Google IPO in August 2014. In this post, we wanted to highlight the biggest losers. Given that we are looking at current members of the S&P 1500, there is a major survivorship bias with this table, because while the stocks listed are down the most since the Google IPO, a number of stocks simply went out of business, so investors would have lost everything. In fact, 200 of the companies that were in the S&P 1500 at the time of Google’s IPO have either been acquired or are out of business.

With that caveat aside, the table below lists the 21 current S&P 1500 stocks that are down 90%+ since Google’s IPO. Besides these 21, another 182 stocks in the index are down during that span. Topping the list of losers is Frontier Communications (FTR), which is down 99.58%. It doesn’t get much closer to a total loss than that! JC Penney (JCP) has been another of the market’s biggest losers falling 98.44%, while Flagstar Bancorp (FBC) is also down over 98%.In terms of sector representation, Consumer Discretionary and Financials top the list with five companies each, and while the high number of Financials listed generally stems from the Financial crisis, the high number of Consumer Discretionary stocks is a result of changing consumer habits. Also, while Technology and Health Care accounted for the largest number of stocks on the list of biggest winners, combined they account for just one stock on the list of biggest losers. That one stock is Unisys (UIS), and we have a hard time even recalling the last time it was considered anything close to a cutting edge tech stock. 

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