2003 Year

The U.S. stock market scored a huge comeback in 2003, ending the worst decline in at least a generation and lifting well-known indexes 25% to 50%. The significance of the turnaround, after three years of heavy losses, may go beyond the gains investors will tally on their brokerage and mutual fund statements.

The recording industry's sales sank again in 2003, but the rate of decline slowed. Total U.S. album sales dipped about 3.6% to an estimated 656 million, compared with an 11% decline the year before, research firm Nielsen SoundScan reported. Sales of CDs, which account for 96% of the market, slid 2% to about 636 million albums, compared with a 9% drop the previous year. Overall album sales have plunged about 16% since peaking in 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

The United States imported a record 63% of its oil from foreign sources in 2003, government figures showed Wednesday, and oil analysts said that dependence was likely to rise in the new year. Crude imports accounted for 62.9% of oil run through U.S. refineries, up from the previous record of 61.7% in 2001 and from 61.2% in 2002, the Energy Department said. Twenty years ago, foreign crude accounted for only 28% of oil used by the United States, the world's biggest consumer then and now.

Wall Street's raucous 2003 ended on a quiet note Wednesday as investors caught their breath after a year that saw the stock market rebound with unexpected strength. Amid light, pre-holiday trading, blue-chip indexes closed slightly higher for the day and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index finished modestly lower, but still above the 2,000 level. The tranquil ending belied the fireworks of the previous 12 months.

Ventura County's 2003 was memorable for its battles to rescue an old rugged cross and save a small rural hospital, for generating the first graduates from the region's new university and for taking the final steps to shield open space from development. The year started with a fugitive rapist and ended with a run on community clinics, as streams of residents waited hours for flu shots in a mad scramble to fend off the bug.

Two days before they began training camp in early August, USC players and coaches gathered in a parking lot at Huntington State Beach. The Trojans were there to mourn the loss, and celebrate the life, of a teammate most never got the chance to meet -- Drean Rucker, an incoming freshman linebacker who had drowned. Afterward, as Rucker's family and friends began to disperse, cornerback Marcell Allmond spoke quietly about Rucker and about the season ahead.

This past year wasn't a great one for sequels in Hollywood (except for the "Lord of the Rings" franchise) or sports. But the first sequel of 2004 holds great promise. No. 1 Connecticut and No. 4 Duke do battle again Saturday. Last year the Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 and the Huskies No. 2 and both were undefeated when they met on Duke's home floor. Connecticut won, 77-65.

It's been a peripatetic year up on the big screen. In movie after movie, a theme of restlessness and migration has emerged, in content and form (consider "American Splendor," which so ingeniously blurred the lines between live action and animation, fiction and documentary). Movies have always been a lagging indicator of social change, but it finally looks as if a 21st century cinema is beginning to emerge, one that emphatically refuses to stay in one place.

While movie fans may remember 2003 as the year of a brave clown fish, a loopy pirate and a reluctant king who saves Middle-earth, number crunchers at the studios may not look back on this year as fondly. When adjusted for inflation, admissions appear to be down as much as 4% this year, and domestic box office revenue is down for the first time in more than a decade. The domestic box office gross for 2003 is expected to be about $8.9 billion, compared with last year's record-breaking $9.