Best & Worst Performing ETFs Of 2022

Best & Worst Performing ETFs Of 2022

U.S. stocks just faced their worst quarterly decline in two years, but somehow it feels like a relief that stocks weren’t down even more. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)’s 4.6% decline during the first quarter of 2022 was its poorest showing since its 19.4% loss in the first quarter of 2020, a quarter in which stocks were ravaged during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While a 4.6% loss is nothing to cheer about in and of itself, it’s a big improvement from just a few weeks ago, when SPY was down more than 12% for the year. Stocks surged back during the second half of March despite continued concerns about rapid inflation, rising interest rates, spiking commodity prices and the Ukraine-Russia war.

None of those worries has gone away, making the comeback in SPY even more impressive (or confounding, depending on how you look at it).