Worst 10-year performers: Bad real-estate bets punish Huntington Bancshares

Filed under: Major movement, Bad news, S and P 500, Housing

In this series, we take a look at the 25 stocks on the S&P 500 Index (SPX) that have turned in the worst performance during the past decade -- what went wrong, and what happens next.

Is it just me, or were Ohio-based regional banks a particular target of the market's wrath during our focus decade? KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) of Cleveland and Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) of Cincinnati have already made cameos on our list of losers -- and I'm not going to give it away, but there's at least one more Buckeye State banker further down the line-up. And, of course, how could we forget Columbus-based Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ: HBAN)?

What went wrong? At number 14 on our list of SPX laggards, HBAN shed 77% of its value from June 30, 1998 through June 30, 2008. At the end of June 1998, the shares were perched just na