The Pulse starts off the new year flat on the innocuous news that there were winners and losers in the markets last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s best- and worst-performing stocks of 2011, and it was McDonald’s who topped the good side of the list. The discount hamburger dynasty finished the year up 31 percent, fueled, no doubt, by belt-tightening worldwide.

The same could probably be said of Home Depot. The home-improvement superstore also finished 2011 deep in the black.

Aluminum giant Alcoa and J.P. Morgan Chase made the Dow losers bracket. Their stocks finished down 43 and 22 percent respectively. But no one even got close to the disaster that was Bank of America. After numerous missteps and PR disasters, their shares finished the 2011 down 59 percent.

Hey, B of A: $5 fee. Great idea.