The market is quite sensitive to the energy sector these days.  Yesterday the index got a big boost when oil had a nice little bounce.  Today crude once again slipped and once again flirted with an 11 year low sending the Dow down another 117 points on this the second to the last trading day for the year.  If not for the energy industry, the markets today would have been in just barely positive territory for the year (the S&P in fact is, though at a whisper thin plus 0.2%.)  Of course, we'll have the final story tomorrow but, as of today, energy is down 24% this year.  So if not for that, it would have been quite the excellent year.  But given the fact that the markets were down nearly 15% as of August and that as recently as a couple weeks ago all the masters were still predicting a 2 to 4% loss for the year, ending the year at near break-even is a remarkable accomplishment.  As of today, the Dow is down 1.2% for the year, but just yesterday it was only half that.  We still have one day left.  At least today's losses were quite a lot less than yesterday's bounce.  As the trend has been, perhaps we'll see a final rally tomorrow.  Whatever happens, volume is still very light at 4.6 billion, but very much in line with usual holiday volumes.

Markets | Wed Dec 30, 2015 4:30pm EST

Oil bogs down Wall St. as S&P 500 clings to gain for 2015

BY NOEL RANDEWICH

DJ:  17,603.87  -117.11      NAS: 5,065.85  -42.09        S&P:  2,063.36  -15.00

REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSON

Wall Street dropped on Wednesday as Brent crude slid towards 11-year lows and Apple weighed on the S&P 500 index, which clung to a meager gain for 2015.

The S&P energy sector .SPNY was the poorest performer among the 10 major sectors, down 1.47 percent after forecasts of a short winter in North America and Europe piled pressure on the oversupplied commodity.

Shares of Exxon (XOM.N) lost 1.33 percent while Chevron (CVX.N) dipped 1.27 percent.

Apple (AAPL.O) was the heaviest drag on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, falling 1.31 percent. Fears of potentially soft iPhone sales have helped push that stock down 9 percent in the past month.

Wednesday's losses undid much a broad rally in the previous session that was similarly influenced by tech and energy stocks.

Netflix (NFLX.O) and Amazon.com (AMZN.O), the S&P 500's top two performers in 2015, dipped 2.02 percent and 0.70 percent respectively.

Nike (NKE.N), this year's best-performing Dow component, fell 1.57 percent.

"There is no consistency and no upside follow-through, which is disturbing, but that's been the pattern all year," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.

The major indices deepened their declines in the last few minutes of trade. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI finished 0.66 percent weaker at 17,603.87 points and the S&P 500.SPX lost 0.72 percent to 2,063.36.  The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.82 percent to 5,065.85.  For the year, the S&P 500 held onto modest 0.2 percent gain, while Nasdaq was up about 7 percent. The Dow, however, was down about 1.2 percent in 2015.

Hobbled by growing global supply and lower demand in Asia, the energy sector has fallen about 24 percent this year, easily the S&P's worst performer. Hurt by a rout in commodities, the materials index .SPLRCM has fallen 10 percent in 2015.

Trading volumes were low and were expected to remain thin on Thursday, the last trading day of the year.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 4.6 billion shares, compared to a 7.4 billion average over the last 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises LP (IEP.O) agreed to buy Pep Boys-Manny Moe & Jack (PBY.N) for about $1 billion, hours after Bridgestone Corp (5108.T) quit the race for the U.S. auto parts retailer. Pep Boys fell 2.90 percent and Icahn Enterprises (IEP.O) dipped 0.97 percent.

Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS.O) rose 3.7 percent after it received a revised offer from the Party G Group, with new terms on termination fees if the takeover fails to secure regulatory approvals.

Weight Watchers (WTW.N) soared 19 percent, extending gains for the third day after the company launched an advertising campaign last week featuring Oprah Winfrey.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,183 to 898. On the Nasdaq, 2,010 issues fell and 826 rose.

The S&P 500 index showed 15 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 54 new highs and 58 new lows.