With the end of the year fast approaching, it's time to start putting together "best of" and "worst of" lists for 2008. This entry is a little bit of both, but it's admittedly heavy on the "worst of." Among the current members of the S&P 500 Index (SPX), just 11 were sitting on a year-to-date gain as of the close of trading on Monday, November 24. Since Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) is unchanged, that means we have a whopping 488 securities sitting on a loss for the year.

Let's start with the bad news first. Among the worst-performing stocks on the SPX, the six top spots are claimed by stocks in the Insurance and Real Estate sectors. General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) has the dubious honor of dropping nearly 98% on the year, and -- not surprisingly -- American International Group (NYSE: AIG) isn't far behind.

For the phamra industry, the long-term trends look promising, especially in light of the aging population. While companies face lots of pressure to cut costs, this is a good thing for the generic drug industry. And, as should be no surprise, we are seeing some dealmaking.

Today, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) has agreed to purchase Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE: BRL) for a cool $7.46 billion (rumors have been swarming about this deal since July 16th).

Israeli generic-drug maker Teva is looking for opportunities to bolster its markets. Acquiring Barr would give it a nice platform in Europe (this was actually because of an acquisition of Pliva in 2006). What's more, the company has a nice offering of drugs such in the contraceptives category.

Teva, already the largest generic drug company in the world, has gotten even bigger with this deal. Taken together, the combined entity will have revenues of close to $12 billion.

With its resources, Teva can continue to snap up some pretty big deals. In the case with Barr, the premium was a whopping 42% (as of Wednesday's close).

So far in today's trading, Teva's shares are up 2.2% to $42.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

The bulls have scored another coup and laid the bears out on the streets just like it was Pamplona. Yep, there's no "Running of the Bears" after all. Oil rolled over for a third day and a more than $4.00 drop took oil futures back under $130.00. Financial stocks again lead the way on earnings and on a government mandated short squeeze. This may just be the start, or it could just be sharp short covering in stocks. One thing is for sure, there's plenty of good news and bad news to argue about.

Below are the unofficial closing bell levels for major index levels:

DJIA 11,429.48 +190.20 +1.69%
S&P 500 1,258.50 +13.14 +1.06%
NASDAQ 2,312.00 +27.15 +1.19%
10YR T-NOTE 4.038% (+0.104%)
52-WEEK LOWS
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) was one of the losers today after the company posted $0.43 EPS (non-GAAP) and $2.2 Billion in revenues, but mixed guidance ahead took shares of the online auction giant down by over 14% by the end of today in the final minutes to a 52-week low of $24.12.