The close, at 8, 541.19 was just 1.5% down from Thursday's close, but the loss capped the index's worst week ever.
But as bad the post-millennium stock market has been, only 4 of these last bear market years have recorded an annual loss for the index (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2008).
For example, if you have a bank stock with a loss, you can move the money from the loss into a bank index ETF, he explains, so that you'll have similar sector exposure.
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There were 118 down days for the index, averaging a loss of 0.56% on those days.
For our treasury index, the worst loss in any of the 997 twelve month periods, using monthly data back to 1926, was a loss of 9.12%, from April of 1979 through March of 1980.
The case for a loss cushion is less compelling in an index fund, which tends to have low turnover and thus few taxable gains to absorb.
Over the past decade or so, the worst loss suffered by Lehman's Aggregate Bond Index, a proxy for the entire bond market, was a 3.5% decline over two months in mid-2003.
Over the past decade or so, the worst loss suffered by Lehman's Aggregate Bond Index (amex: AGG - news - people ), a proxy for the entire bond market, was a 3.5% decline over two months in mid-2003.
For example, while the DJIA is off just a fraction from its highs (-0.13 to be exact), the NASDAQ is off -2.2% over the past two days, the Midcaps have fallen -2.5%, and the Russell 2000 smallcap index has been tagged for a loss of -3.7%.
That leaves the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index Fund (ITB) at a loss of 10% for all of 2011.
It is the first time since 1994 for the index to end the year with a loss, and only the third time since it was first compiled in 1984.
The fall was so abysmal that it remains the index's biggest one-day percentage loss ever.
Shares of Dow component Boeing were down 1.8% Wednesday morning and the 30-stock index opened with a 0.6% loss.
The loss was from bad bets on the direction of European stock index futures.
Another poor performer was Tokyo's Nikkei index, which closed with a 27.2% loss on the year - and a massive 34% drop from the highs reached in March.
In London, the FTSE 100 share index closed at 6, 222.5 points - a loss of 10.2% over the past 12 months.
The benchmark index finished down 1.1% at 2191.15, its ninth loss in 10 sessions.
Bangkok's SET stock market index is up 7.4% year-to-date, compared to a 1.7% loss for the Bank of New York's Asia ADR (American Depositary Receipts) index.
Currency-only hedge funds made a 6% loss in 2011 and a gain of just 0.8% in 2012, according to a benchmark index run by fund-of-funds manager Parker Global Strategies LLC.
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But the Lehman Brothers STRIPS 20-25 index dropped 19.9% during that period--and that wasn't its worst loss.
That index collapsed from 8238 seen in July 2007 all the way down to 378 in March 2009, a loss of 95%.
Loss of air conditioning creates big problems, this proven in the great Midwestern heatwave of 1995 (when the heat index reached a deadly 136 in southern Wisconsin).
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