'Stockys' Unveiled to Honor Year's Best Worst Performers.

WITH 2000 at an end, it's time for a new set of awards to take their place TV alongside the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys and the Tonys.

These awards -- call them the "Stockys," for lack of any better name -- stand out for a couple of reasons. First, they pay tribute to U.S. stocks, rather than movies, television programs, music or plays. Second, they don't have any standing categories; each is uniquely suited to its recipient.

So without any further ado, let the ceremony begin. The winners are:

* Step Into My Time Machine Award: Just imagine how much money one could make by returning to the beginning of 2000 and selling as many shares of Internet-related companies as possible.

The Bloomberg U.S. Internet Index showed a 66 percent loss for the year. That was quite a turnaround from its 160 percent gain in 1999.

Worse yet, more than one-quarter of the index's current members plunged at least 90 percent last year. And that doesn't take into account all the dot-com companies that collapsed, such as Mothernature.com Inc., Pets.com Inc. and Quepasa.com Inc.

* No Longer for Widows and Orphans Award: Utility stocks belied their reputation as relatively stable investments. As electricity and natural gas prices soared, so did shares of companies in which earnings benefited from the surge.

Among 11 "economic sector" indexes tracked by Standard & Poor's, one that measures utilities posted the year's biggest gain by far. This indicator, confined to companies in the benchmark S&P 500, climbed 54 percent. The second-ranked index, covering health-care companies, trailed by 20 percentage points.

* Let's Kill All the Lawyers Award: Shares of companies that have to defend against asbestos litigation took the same kind of beating as dot-coms. Five of them were expelled from the S&P 500: Armstrong Holdings Inc., Crown Cork & Seal Co., W.R. Grace & Co., Owens Corning and Owens-Illinois Inc. For the year, they sank by an average of 82 percent.

Armstrong's main unit, Armstrong World Industries Inc., and Owens Corning both filed for bankruptcy protection as the claims against them mounted.

* Welcome to the Dow Industrials Award: This one's a dubious distinction, because the four companies that joined the average in November 1999 -- Home Depot Inc., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and SBC Communications Inc. -- all fell during 2000.

SBC, the second-largest provider of local telephone service, won the prize by dropping the least: 2.1 percent. Intel declined 27 percent. Home Depot and Microsoft ranked among the average's four worst performers, tumbling 34 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

* Welcome to the S&P 500 Award: More than 50 companies joined the benchmark index during the year, and Dynegy Inc. was the best performer of the bunch. The Houston-based trader of electricity and natural gas rose 218 percent during 2000 and ranked second among all S&P 500 members.

Other power-related companies took fifth, sixth and seventh places. Calpine Corp., an operator of power plants, led the trio with a gain of 182 percent. Kinder Morgan Inc., a gas-pipeline operator that entered the S&P 500 last month, rose 159 percent. Power-One Inc., a maker of power converters, advanced 157 percent.

* Nothing Goes Up in a Straight Line Award: Before General Electric Co. decided to acquire Honeywell International Inc. in October, its share price had risen for eight straight quarters. That streak was one of the longest for an S&P 500 company.

GE's stock dropped as it agreed to make the $45.8 billion purchase, its biggest ever, in October. Shares of the Fairfield, Conn.-based company fell further later in the quarter and recorded a 17 percent loss for the period.

* Who Wears These Shoes Award: As this year began, Reebok International Ltd.'s shares extended a three-year losing streak. The February low, $6.94, was the lowest price since April 1986. Then came the comeback, which propelled Reebok to a full-year gain of 237 percent -- the largest among S&P 500 members.

After the Canton, Mass.-based company revamped its footwear and set up exclusive partnerships with retailers, sales started to rise. So did earnings, which almost tripled during the first nine months of the year.

* Fourth Time's the Charm Award: Carl Icahn tried, and tried, and tried again to take over Nabisco Group Holdings Corp., whose sole asset was an 80.5 percent stake in Nabisco Holdings Corp., the largest U.S. maker of cookies and crackers.

Icahn started his fourth run in March by seeking to take control of the Parsippany, N.J.-based company's board. The financier then offered to acquire the company, which countered by putting the food business up for sale.

Philip Morris Cos. purchased Nabisco Holdings last month. At the same time, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. bought Nabisco Group, which received $11.7 billion in cash for its shares in the food unit. Icahn ended up with at least $615 million in profit.

Anyone who was able to come out ahead this year probably deserves something as well. But there aren't any more Stockys available. Better luck next year.

David Wilson is a columnist for Bloomberg News.