US stocks were lightly traded on the closing day on Friday (31st). Communication services and technology stocks led the decline. Major US stock indexes closed in black on the last trading day of 2021, ending a turbulent year.
Looking back on the past year, the retail army was in the lead, a large number of capital stocks flocked to meme stocks, the new crown vaccine was launched, the Federal Reserve (Fed) maintained close to zero interest rates, corporate treasury plans, and US President Biden and Congress pushed a series of bills. To deal with the economic weakness caused by the epidemic, including direct financial assistance to Americans and 1.2 trillion yuanDollarThese factors have contributed to the rise of US stocks this year.
S&P rose by more than 28% in 2021, setting a new closing high of 70 times, and achieving a double-digit annual return for the third consecutive year. This is also the best record since 1999. Dow Jones and Nasdaq also performed well in the past year, with annual gains of 20.23% and 23.20% respectively.
S&P’s 11 major sectors achieved double-digit growth for the first time in the whole year. Energy stocks were the biggest winner, and Devon Energy’s annual growth rate reached 182.85%. Some large stocks have driven the rise of US stocks this year. Both Microsoft and Tesla have risen by more than 44% this year, while Apple has risen by more than 37%.
With the coming of the New Year celebrations, the number of global new crown confirmed cases continued to hit a record high. Before the deadline, according to the data of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the number of confirmed cases worldwide had exceeded 287 million, and the number of deaths exceeded 5.43 million. More than 9.16 billion doses of vaccines have been vaccinated in 184 countries/regions around the world.
US flight cancellations continue to accelerate, and the UK approved Pfizer’s new crown oral drug Paxlovid on Friday. South Africa said that the peak of the Omicron epidemic had passed and the curfew was lifted.
Friday (31st) the performance of the four major US stock indexes:
- The Dow Jones Index fell 59.78 points, or 0.16%, to close at 36,338.3 points.
- The Nasdaq Index fell 96.59 points, or 0.61%, to close at 15,644.97 points.
- The S&P 500 Index fell 12.55 points, or 0.26%, to close at 4,766.18 points.
- The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 5.9 points, or 0.15%, to close at 3,946.2 points.
Focus stocks
The five kings of science and technology are exhausted. Apple (AAPL-US) Fell 0.35%; Meta (formerly Facebook) (FB-US) Fell 2.33%; Alphabet (GOOGL-US) Fell 0.92%; Amazon (AMZN-US) Fell 1.14%; Microsoft (MSFT-US) Fell 0.88%.
Dow Jones constituent stocks received more blacks. Goldman Sachs (GS-US) Fell 0.77%; Jiaosheng (JNJ-US) Fell 0.72%; Boeing (BA-US) Fell 0.69%; Disney (DIS-US) Fell 0.67%; Home Depot (HD-US) Rose 1.24%.
Fei’s semi-constituent stocks were mixed. AMD (AMD-US) Fell 0.86% %; NVIDIA (NVDA-US) Fell 0.59%; Intel (INTC-US) Fell 0.46%; Micron (MU-US) Fell 0.68%; Qualcomm (QCOM-US) Rose 0.077%; Applied Materials (AMAT-US) Fell 0.39%.
Taiwan stock ADR also mixed up and down. TSMC ADR (TSM-US) Fell 0.09%; ASE ADR (ASX-US) Rose 0.64%; UMC ADR (UMC-US) Rose 0.52%; Chunghwa Telecom ADR (CHT-US) Fell 0.07%.
Corporate News
Pfizer (PFE-US) Rose 1.11% to 59.05 per share Dollar, An annual increase of 60.42%. Pfizer’s first oral drug for the new crown, Paxlovid, was approved by the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Friday. The MHRA recommends that patients use it within 5 days after the first symptoms appear, and the effect is best.
Tesla (TSLA-US) Fell 1.27% to 1,056.78 per share Dollar, An annual increase of 44.81%. Deutsche Bank released its latest report on Friday, setting Tesla’s target price from 1,000 DollarUp to 1,200 Dollar, To reiterate Tesla’s “Buy” rating. The report pointed out that Tesla’s development trajectory in terms of battery technology, capacity, and especially cost may help accelerate the global shift to electric vehicles and significantly expand Tesla’s lead in electric vehicles.
Some meme stocks took profits on Friday. AMC Entertainment (AMC-US) Fell 5.91% to 27.20 per share Dollar, The annual increase reached 1,253.23%. GameStop (GME-US) Fell 4.56% to 148.39 per share Dollar, An annual increase of 760.23%.
Wall Street Analysis
S&P closed at 4766 points this year. The closing price was far better than the average analyst target price (4,074 points) at the beginning of the year. Among the S&P sectors, the energy and real estate sectors performed best.
According to Refinitiv data, the year-to-date financial reports of standard constituent companies have exceeded analysts’ expectations, with annual profits in the first three quarters of this year increasing by 52.8%, 96.3%, and 42.6%, respectively. Wall Street estimates that profit growth in the fourth quarter will reach 22.3%.
Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, said: “Among all the negative factors this year, the most significant thing for us is the resilience of American companies. Amidst uncertainty and inflation, American companies are in a very difficult year. The 45% profit growth has left a very deep impression on the market.”
Deutsche Bank U.S. economist Brett Ryan said: “One thing that people have learned this year is that the U.S. economy has proven to be resilient in the face of epidemic-related challenges. Omicron and fiscal uncertainty bring risks, but Even if these risks become a reality, the economy will continue to expand at a faster-than-expected rate.”
Wall Street is paying attention to many risk challenges in 2022, including U.S. inflation, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike, and the impact of variant viruses. Sean Markowicz, a strategist at Schroder Investment Management, said: “This year is indeed a year of economic recovery. As the large-scale fiscal stimulus to deal with the epidemic subsides, economic growth will cool down in 2022.”
The figures are updated before the deadline, please follow the actual quotation