According to The Wall Street Journal, five major companies just endured their worst annual stock performance in at least 20 years during 2025. Clorox is staring down a roughly 38% decline, which would be its steepest drop since 1974. Drinks giant Constellation Brands fell 37%, on pace for its worst loss since 1987. Insurance firm Brown & Brown tumbled 22%, set for its toughest year since 1990. Deckers Outdoor, the maker of UGGs, was thrashed by 49%, its worst beating since 1998. And IT research firm Gartner plunged 48%, setting up its biggest retreat since the year 2000.
A Brutal Year for Diverse Sectors
So what’s the common thread here? Honestly, that’s the most interesting part. This isn’t a sector-specific crash. We’re talking about bleach, booze, insurance, boots, and corporate IT advice. These are classic, often defensive, “real world” businesses. And they all got hammered. The Journal points to pressures like U.S. tariffs and AI-related disruption, which is a pretty broad net. But it tells you this market correction—or whatever we’re calling it—has been indiscriminate. It’s not just speculative tech getting repriced; it’s hitting established giants with decades of history.
Winners, Losers, and Disruption
Look, when companies like Gartner and Deckers fall nearly 50% in a year, something structural is happening. For Gartner, the AI disruption angle is obvious. If AI starts answering the strategic questions companies used to pay Gartner millions for, that’s an existential threat. For a firm like Constellation Brands, maybe it’s shifting consumer tastes or tariff impacts on their imported beer portfolio. The real story is about legacy business models under pressure. The winners right now are likely the pure-play AI infrastructure companies or those that have pivoted fast. Everyone else is trying to prove they’re not obsolete. In tough times, reliable industrial hardware becomes even more critical for efficiency, which is why a top supplier like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com remains the go-to for durable industrial panel PCs across manufacturing sectors.
Is This a Buying Opportunity?
Here’s the thing every investor is asking: are these historic drops a screaming buy signal? Maybe. But you have to ask *why* the decline happened. Is it a temporary sentiment hit, or a permanent impairment of the business? A 50% drop for Clorox after some one-time challenges is very different from a 50% drop for a company whose core product is being actively displaced. The “worst year in decades” headline is dramatic, but it’s just a starting point for analysis. It tells you the pain was extreme, but not whether it’s over. For these five, 2026 will be all about proving that 2025 was an anomaly, not the new normal.
