Equity markets post strong gains in 2021 as oil heads for biggest jump since 2009 – business live | Business

Good morning and welcome to our ongoing coverage of the global economy, financial markets, Eurozone and business.

It’s the last trading day of the year, and what a year ago.

It started with the GameStop drama, when small investors piled up in meme stocks and battled hedge funds. It has been dominated by the pandemic, with vaccines allowing economies to reopen, and new Covid-19 variants leading to travel restrictions, lockdowns and supply chain disruption.

Equity markets rose, while corporate profits held up. Commodities skyrocketed, driving up corporate costs.

Central banks continued to stimulate their economies by jacking up markets throughout the year, before persistently high inflation forced some to change course.

The result: Britain’s blue chip FTSE 100 index gained more than 14% as it made up for its losses early in the pandemic, one of its best performances in the past 20 years.

Today is a half day session, so by lunchtime we will have the final score.

Frankfurt and Tokyo finished everything yesterday, with Germany’s DAX getting 16% and Japan’s Nikkei rose 4.9% to its highest year-end since 1989.

Wall Street has had a year, with the… S&P 500 index rose about 27%, with megatech companies delivering gains.

2021 was an excellent year for stock returns, says Richard Vlas, CIO at digital asset manager Money farm.

The second half of the year saw slightly more volatility than the first half – largely thanks to the Omicron variant that created uncertainty – but countries like the US, Europe and Japan experienced strong growth.

But the situation is a little different for emerging markets and the Asia-Pacific region, adds Flax:

EM had a negative performance in 2021, with the problems really starting in the early summer.

The main reason for this drop in performance is China – the two main issues hitting the biggest economy of the bunch are the resurgence of Covid-19 and some disappointing economic growth figures. The Chinese government’s crackdown on major tech companies has also had an impact on the country’s economic wealth.

We follow the action until the last day of the year and look ahead to 2022.