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Sunday photo of a health worker at a COVID-19 vaccination center at Wembley Stadium in London
By Katanga Johnson and Tommy Wilkes
NEW YORK / LONDON, Dec 31 (Archyde.com) – Global equities ranged from modest gains and losses on Friday in low-volume trades, but was poised to post double-digit gains for the year.
* Meanwhile, oil prices fell below $ 80 a barrel, but still experiencing their biggest annual rise since 2009.
* The dollar, which has had its best year since 2015 with a 6.7% rise, was down against most major currencies.
* With several Asian and European markets closed on Friday, trading volumes were very low and most of the exchanges that remained open did not have a fixed address.
* The MSCI World Stock Index was up 0.07%. The index is up 17% in 2021, its third year in a row with double-digit gains.
* An increasing number of countries are reporting record daily cases of COVID-19 from the omicron variant, so New Year celebrations have been reduced or canceled.
* After the initial decline in December, stocks have rallied over the holiday period, as investors have reassured that economies can cope with the surge in omicron cases and are heading to record highs.
* Investors have clung to their bet on the resilience of the global recovery in 2022, as well as the prospect of further hikes if money remains cheap and corporate profitability so high.
* This year’s “everything rally” has benefited from a barrage of cheap money from central banks, fiscal stimulus and the strong economic rebound after the pandemic, which made it difficult not to benefit from rising asset prices.
* US stocks have fueled global gains as record earnings figures from big tech companies have excited investors. This week, the S&P 500 has once again reached another all-time high.
* Commodity prices have also enjoyed a very strong year, with supply often falling short of increasing demand as economies reopened.
* On the last day of the year, Brent crude futures were down 0.82% at $ 78.88 a barrel, while US crude was down 1% at $ 76.22 a barrel. But both Brent and West Texas Intermediate have risen more than 50% in 2021, driven by the global economic recovery and the restriction of producers.
* The euro, which has fallen 7.4% this year on investor bets that the European Central Bank will take longer than its peers to end the pandemic-era stimulus, was up 0.1% to stay above $ 1.13. Meanwhile, the yen, which has lost more than 11% against the dollar in 2021, fell again slightly on the day to 115.1 yen per dollar, not far from the four-year lows reached at the beginning of the month.
(Reporting by Katanga Johnson in Washington and Tommy Wilkes in London; translation by Darío Fernández)