The 10 biggest losers in the S&P 500 this year have seen $1.6 trillion in market value erased

• In a losing year for US stocks, here are the 10 biggest percentage decliners on the S&P 500.
• Meta, Tesla, and Match made the cut as their shares veered toward losses of more than 60% each.

Equity investors are no doubt eager to usher out 2022 after a turbulent year of sharp losses.

Shaped greatly by Russia's war in Ukraine and central banks responding to soaring inflation with massive rate hikes, the relatively risky asset class was dragged into a bear market. The S&P 500 was on course to fall about 20%, and the Nasdaq Composite was looking at a decline of more than 30%.

Looking at the carnage another way, about 70% of companies on the S&P 500 were logging negative returns as 2022 wraps up.

Large-cap tech stocks including Apple and Amazon were beaten down as higher borrowing costs weigh on the value of future profits. With recession fears ramping up, high-profile tech companies including Meta and Microsoft combined have laid off thousands of workers.

The 10 S&P 500 companies that have experienced the largest stock-price declines heading into the end of 2022 have wiped out a combined market value of more than $1.6 trillion.

Here are the benchmark index's 10 biggest losers in 2022 on a percentage basis.

10. PayPal

Ticker: PYPL
YTD Performance: -63.4%
Market Value Decline: $142.49 billion

Like many tech companies, the digital payments processor is seeing a slowdown after a pandemic boom. Net new accounts in the third quarter increased by 2.9 million compared with 13.3 million in the year-ago period. CEO Dan Schulman told analysts the macro environment looks difficult in part with inflationary pressures in Europe and in the US, and a potentially shallow recession in the US. The shares popped higher earlier in December, however, after Schulman reportedly said fourth-quarter per-share earnings were tracking "slightly ahead" of its expectations.

9. V.F. Corp.

Ticker: VFC
YTD Performance: - 64.4%
Market Value Decline: $18.6 billion

The company behind The North Face, Supreme, Vans and other apparel labels rounded off a rough year for its stock with the unexpected departure of Steve Randle as CEO. The Denver-based company said this year it's been navigating through a "more disrupted global marketplace," pockmarked by COVID-related issues in China and consumers facing economic uncertainty.

8. Signature Bank

Ticker: SBNY
YTD Performance: -64.5%
Market Value Decline: $12.4 billion

"We are not just a crypto bank and we want that to come across loud and clear," CEO Joe DePaolo reportedly said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference this month.

The bank's shares have been hit as the so-called crypto winter has slashed the cryptocurrency market's value from its high of more than $1 trillion and crypto deposits at the bank have declined. Signature anounced plans to reduce crypto-related deposits by $8 billion to $10 billion. The stock did rise on the mid-November day that Signature said its deposit relationship with collapsed crypto exchange FTX was less than 0.1% of its overall deposits.

7. Meta Platforms

Investors have largely pushed back on CEO and major shareholder Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse ambitions that led to the company's rebranding from Facebook last year. Its Reality Labs unit centered on virtual-world technology has lost nearly $20 billion since last year. One prominent investor has called on Meta to cut back on its Reality Labs investment.

Well aware of the backlash, Zuckerberg recently said 80% of Meta's investments are still directed to its core social media business. The drop in Meta's valuation has sliced more than $80 billion off of Zuckerberg's vast wealth, which recently stood at more than $44 billion.

6. Tesla

Ticker: TSLA
YTD Performance: -65%
Market Value Decline: $703.12 billion

The pummeling of the EV maker's stock price this year knocked CEO Elon Musk from his perch as the world's richest man. A few forces were at work here: Musk himself blames the Federal Reserve for driving down Tesla's valuation, saying its aggressive rate hikes have pushed up US Treasury bond yields, boosting the appeal of that low-risk debt over relatively riskier assets. Meanwhile, some investors and analysts say Tesla has been hurt by Musk's sales of billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares and his focus on Twitter after his controversial $44 billion acquisition of the social media site in October.

Supply chain problems in China have also been a pressure point although the company has been able to log record monthly sales during 2022. For those watching Musk's net worth, it's fallen by more than $130 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

5. Catalent

The contract manufacturer for pharmaceutical, consumer health and biotech companies, has worked on producing coronavirus vaccines for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. But with coronavirus infections slowing overall, the company has flagged "headwinds from COVID-related volume declines," and last month cut its 2023 revenue projection to a range of $4.63 billion to $4.88 billion.

4. SVB Financial Group

Silicon Valley Bank is a "good proxy for deal flow in Tech," Bespoke Investment Group said in October as SVB shares plunged double-digits following fourth-quarter results. The company has cut its 2022 outlook for net interest income as it's seen market challenges hitting liquidity flows to private companies and the overall tech landscape hurt by fears of recession and spiking borrowing costs.

It's also been a rough year for innovative companies seeking to go public, with the global IPO market volumes down 45%.

3. Align Technology

CEO Joe Hogan told Yahoo Finance earlier this year that high inflation and supply chain constraints pressured the company behind Invisalign clear braces. The "shutdowns in China really hurt our business," he said about its second-largest market. He made his observations months before China recently began easing restrictions in its strict zero-COVID policy, with economists broadly saying that should reinvigorate growth there - and perhaps re-ignite inflation.

2. Match Group

Shares of the parent company of Tinder, Match.com, Plenty of Fish and other dating sites have hit their lowest since publicly launching in 2015. The company has run into slowing revenue growth in part as younger and less affluent customers feel the pinch in their discretionary spending. Match says its visibility into 2023 is "challenging."

1. Generac Holdings

Mass COVID lockdowns helped sparked big demand for backup generators as people worked and studied at home. The power systems maker has since seen residential sales slow while commercial and industrial sales have grown. Generac last month slashed its 2022 sales outlook, driving the stock down further from its pandemic-era heights.