NEW YORK (Reuters) ? For the U.S. stock market, 2011 was a long wild ride to nowhere.
The broad S&P 500 endured huge daily swings but a year of drama left the index almost where it started. It lost a mere 0.003 percent, closest to unchanged since 1947, according to Standard & Poor's.
Global markets have been battered this year by the euro-zone debt crisis, upheaval in the Middle East, and U.S. political gridlock. Similar events probably await investors in 2012.
"The earnings and fundamentals were there for companies, but the political crisis and paralysis in Washington and Europe were too much," said Martin Sass, who founded and runs the $7.5 billion M.D. Sass hedge fund.
"They overwhelmed the fundamentals. I didn't think the euro- zone crisis would have been so protracted as it has become."
The Dow industrials gained 5.5 percent for the year as investors sought safety in large-cap, dividend-paying stocks. The Nasdaq lost 1.8 percent.
Investors took out their ire on the financials (.GSPF), which were the weakest group this year, falling more than 18 percent. Concerns about exposure to Europe and the threat of a renewed financial crisis hurt those shares.
Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) was the Dow's worst performer, tumbling 58.3 percent this year, and it was also one of the S&P 500's biggest losers. JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) slumped 21.6 percent in 2011.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp (COG.N) was the only S&P component to double its stock price in 2011 - rising 100.5 percent - followed by another energy name, El Paso Corp (EP.N), which rose 93.1 percent. The S&P 500 's weakest stock was First Solar (FSLR.O), as shares of that company were hit by falling solar panel prices. For the year, the stock was off 74.1 percent.
Defensive sectors like utilities outperformed growth sectors, underscoring the view that investors were concerned about the economic outlook.
McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) advanced 31 percent this year, making it the Dow's biggest gainer.
Reflecting the wild market swings, the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX (.VIX), rose about 32 percent for the year, the first increase since 2008. The S&P 500 climbed 9 percent at its peak, and dropped 14.5 percent to its bottom.
One potential silver lining headed into 2012 is that after relatively flat years, the market tends to bounce.
"The other times (the S&P 500) didn't change much during the year, it performed quite well during the next year," said Jason Goepfert, president of SentimenTrader.com in a report.
"Overall, the years after these small-change years did well, especially during the past 50 years."
Of those, the next year returned a median gain of 17.8 percent, according to Goepfert's data. The maximum loss averaged
a decline of only 1.6 percent versus a maximum gain that averaged 20.9 percent. He also noted the final session of the year has not had a great run lately, being positive only 34 percent of the time during the past 30 years.
A DOWNBEAT FRIDAY
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) fell 69.48 points, or 0.57 percent, to 12,217.56 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) slipped 5.42 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,257.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dropped 8.59 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,605.15.
Daily volume this week has been running about half of the average, with many traders away for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. The anemic action amplified moves in both directions.
European shares closed up on Friday, but recorded their biggest annual drop in three years as debt tensions in the euro zone strained the financial sector and threatened to derail a fragile economic recovery. (.EU)
Some believe investors may have become too panic-stricken about Europe, an issue that will dominate headlines in coming months.
"Most of the Italian debt gets rolled over in the first quarter ... Once that debt's rolled, if it's rolled successfully, then there isn't any more to talk about this subject we've beaten to death for over a year now," said Ken Fisher, chief executive of Fisher Investments.
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For a graphic on 2011 market performance, see:
http://r.reuters.com/xut75s
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Composite volume was 4.07 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and Amex, well below this year's daily average of about 7.84 billion shares.
Decliners led advancers on the New York Stock Exchange by about 4 to 3, while on the Nasdaq, about three stocks fell for every two that rose.
(Reporting By Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Daniel Bases in New York and Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Jan Paschal)
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Public release date: 27-Dec-2011
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Once accused of being absent-minded, the founder of American Psychology, William James, quipped that he was really just present-minded to his own thoughts. William James didn?t just live in his own head, but he also studied the phenomenon, coining the term ?stream of thought? in 1890. In his famous textbook Principles of Psychology, he opened an early chapter with the following: ?We now begin our study of the mind from within?. He clearly saw the internal stream of consciousness as an important topic within psychology.
But among all this talk of ?mind wandering? and ?executive control failure?, let?s please not forget about the third daydreaming style that has been identified: Positive-Constructive Daydreaming. This style of daydreaming?which Jerome L. Singer has spent most of his career studying? is a normal, universal feature of human cognition. As Eric Klinger and his colleagues have shown, Positive-Constructive Daydreaming is not pathological. Jonathan Smallwood and Jonathan Schooler have argued that mind wandering is a goal-driven process, even though it?s not directed toward an external task. As they also note in a recent review, mind wandering may serve multiple adaptive functions, such as future planning, sorting out current concerns, cycling through different information streams, distributed learning (vs. cramming), and creativity.
Tablets are great entertainment devices, but when compared to a computer they're hardly as quick and useful for getting things done. But if you want your tablet to be more than just a fun little toy, it's really just a matter of the right apps, attitude, and configuration. Here's how you can turn your tablet into a handy, productivity-boosting tool. 
For the most part, you already have a lot of the apps you're going to need for keep you productive. Your calendar, email, address book, clock/timer, and calculator are all useful utilities you may want to have at the ready. These are all great apps for quickly checking information, setting an alarm, or whatever, but those apps are only so helpful. There is much more you can do. Here are a few suggestions.
A lot of the work we do nowadays is online, and even if not there are plenty of sites that offer useful information and tools to aid us in our work. Whether it's your company wiki, a project management tool, or just a helpful web site you can add them as bookmarks for super-quick access. If you don't know how to do this on your iPad, just read these instructions (or watch the video to the left). Android can add bookmarks and other shortcuts for things like quick driving directions, by simply tapping and holding on an empty part of the home screen. This will provide you with options to add the shortcut you want.
Tablets were designed to be consumption devices, for the most part, so it's easy to get distracted when you have a bunch of games staring back at you from a beautiful, glossy screen. Additionally, if you mix your productivity apps in with everything else you'll have a hard time locating the app that you need. For these reasons, it's helpful to have an entire page on your home screen dedicated to getting things done. This way you can flick over to that page during the work day and flick back when you're done.
While most of this guide is going to concentrate on using apps and bookmarks/shortcuts to quickly grab useful information as you need it, sometimes you're going to need to quickly pull up a web site, an image, or some other information that isn't already bookmarked. There are plenty of ways to do this, but one of our favorites is the Site to Phone extension and app because it works with nearly every browser and mobile operating system. It will let you send links directly to your browser to your tablet with just a click. Alternatively, iPad users might want to check out MyPhoneDesktop for sending more kinds of information not only to your tablet but back to your desktop as well.