Cisco in San Jose, California, trailed the S&P 500 in eight out of the last 11 years as the market value of the world's biggest maker of networking equipment fell 82 percent to $99.7 billion. The stock is down 8.3 percent this year, even after posting earnings that beat analysts' estimates for at least the 27th straight quarter.
The market value of Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE has dropped 67 percent. The world's largest maker of jet engines failed to exceed analysts' estimates for the first time in two years as third-quarter earnings suffered from tighter profit margins in the industrial business. Its shares have fallen 12 percent this year.
Microsoft, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker, has been displaced by Irving, Texas-based oil producer Exxon as the world's biggest company after demand from emerging markets bolstered energy stocks. Exxon's profit almost doubled in the past 11 years.
Southwestern Energy, the Houston-based natural-gas producer, earned $604.1 million last year after losing $46.7 million in 2000. Cliffs, North America's largest iron-ore producer, has boosted earnings 56-fold since 2000 as a housing boom in China and demand from automakers boosted steel orders. Southwestern Energy has a market value of $13.1 billion, while Cliffs is worth $9.77 billion.
"It was only a lost decade if you anchored on equities as your core holding and you relied on cap-weighting," Rob Arnott, chairman and founder of Newport Beach, California-based investment firm Research Affiliates LLC, said in a telephone interview on Nov. 18. About $78 billion is managed using his firm's investment strategies. "It was a lost decade for most investors, but it didn't have to be."