Tesla is not alone: 20 (and a half) other big stocks had their worst year on record

Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.12% had the worst year among the group of S&P 1500 constituents with a market capitalization of $30 billion or higher headed for record annual percentage declines. Tesla shares declined 65% so far this year, easily the worst year on record for the popular stock, which has only had one previous negative year since going public in 2010, an 11% decline in 2016.

Tesla barely outpaced another Silicon Valley company. Meta Platforms Inc. META, +0.07%, the parent company of Facebook, fell 64.2% as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg stuck to spending billions to develop the “metaverse” despite a stagnating online-advertising industry, which provides the bulk of his revenue. It is only the second year in Facebook’s history that the stock has declined, after a 25.7% drop in 2018, though shares did end Facebook’s IPO year of 2012 30% lower than the original IPO price.

Only one other stock contended with Tesla and Meta’s record declines this year, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has some familiarity with that company as well. PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL, +0.94%, where Musk first found fame during the dot-com boom, declined 62.2% as executives refocused the company on attracting and retaining high-value users instead of trying to get as many users as possible on the payments platform. It is be the second consecutive down year for PayPal, which had not experienced that before 2021 since spinning off from eBay Inc. EBAY, -0.84% in 2015.

No other companies that suffered their worst year lost more than half their value this year, though Charter Communications Inc. CHTR, +0.05% came close. The telecommunications company’s stock declined 48%, as investors worry about plans to spend big in 2023 in an attempt to turn around declining internet-subscriber numbers.

Two stocks made the list on the last day of trading of the year, after this story was originally published. Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. narrowly pushed past 2016 for the worst on record, though it only fell 3.3% on the year. Keysight Technologies Inc. KEYS, -0.66% fell in Friday’s session for a 17.2% annual decline, narrowly pushing past 2015 for its worst year on record.

In addition to the list below, Alphabet Inc.’s class C shares GOOG, -0.25% had their worst year on record with a 38.7% decline. MarketWatch is not including that on the list, however, as Alphabet’s class A shares GOOGL, -0.25% fell 55.5% in 2008; the separate class of nonvoting shares was created in 2012 to allow the company — then still called Google — to continue issuing shares to employees without diluting the control of co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Apart from that portion of Alphabet’s shares, here are the 21 large stocks that suffered their worst year ever, according to Dow Jones Market Data.