What Would I Rather Own?

Here's a few well known stocks {their symbols} and approximate percent they've declined  so far as of Monday in 2016:

Chesapeake Energy {CHK}      -51%
Lincoln Financial {LNC}         -32%
Salesforce.com INc. {CRM}    -31%
ConocoPhillips {COP}             -29%
Amazon.com {AMZN}            -29%
Netflix {NFLX}                        -29%
Citigroup {C}                           -26%
Amgen  {AMGN}                    -10%

There are other stocks that we could add above.  Some are better or worse than this list.  Would I rather own the individual securities or an ETF where each individual stock is aggregated with all the other securities included in the underlying ETF?  Hands down I'll own the ETF.  ETFs are no panacea for a declining market.  The S&P 500 ETF {symbol SPY}, to name just one, is down around 9% so far in 2016.  But at least in the aggregate there is a better likelihood of stabilization at some point and eventually a rally when it is again time for the index to advance.  SPY also pays a dividend that right now is north of 2%.  Not sure I can say with any confidence that a stock  like Chesapeake will eventually come back.  If it does it will likely have a long time of hard slogging.  Even though Chesapeake is likely a component of several different ETFs, its participating size is likely so small as to not seriously impact portfolio construction.      The S&P 500 is a millstone right now in any portfolio.  Chesapeake, even if it is a small percentage in an account is a worse drag on performance.

*Many of these stocks listed above are component parts of ETFs that we own in personal and client accounts.  Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client accounts though positions can change at any time.