Stocks end mixed year with droop

NEW YORK – U.S. stocks slid Friday, with the S&P 500 relinquishing its 2011 gain, as investors closed the books on a volatile year largely driven by Europe’s uncertain efforts to stem its debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the year up 5.5 percent, its second consecutive yearly rise. What had been a slight gain for 2011 vanished in the final moments of trade for the S&P 500 index, which finished a fraction below its 2010 close. The Nasdaq composite index finished 2011 down 1.8 percent for its first annual loss since 2008.

“As we end the year, we are pretty much right where we started,” said Chris Hobart, chief executive officer of Hobart Financial Group in Charlotte, N.C.

“This is a process that is going to have to be worked out over time and unfortunately we’ve seen a relatively small country like Greece have their issues, then trickle through Italy, and now come to life in Spain,” Hobart said of Europe’s regional debt trouble.

The Dow’s best performer of the day happened to be its worst performer for the year, with Bank of America Corp. up 1.8 percent on the day and down 58 percent for 2011.

Conversely, McDonald’s Corp. lost 0.5 percent during the session but was the best-performing blue chip for 2011, up almost 31 percent.

Defensive sectors fared best for 2011, with utilities, consumer staples and health care leading sector gains for the year, while financial firms, natural-resource companies and industrials were hardest hit.

Investors drew limited cheer from reassurances made by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who ruled out a breakup of the euro region in an interview published Friday.

“I think that in the next 12 months we will have avoided the danger of contagion and will have stabilized the euro zone,” Schaeuble told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper.