(Paris) The stock markets closed Friday in a sad mood a year 2022 which marked them with a red iron, with equity indices which fell under the weight of soaring interest rates and inflation.
Gloom has settled in the European markets of Frankfurt (-1.05%) in London (-0.81%) and Paris (-1.52%) in Milan (-1.45%).
The Stoxx Europe 600 index, which represents 600 of the main European market capitalisations, has fallen by more than 12% since the start of the year, like the German Dax, which has uncharacteristically underperformed its counterparts. The CAC 40 fell by 9.50% compared to December 31, 2021 and London resisted (+0.91%).
At the end of the day, “European markets are doing really well. Finally, Europe outperformed the United States”, in this it is “an atypical year”, underlines Pierre Bismuth, managing director and head of management at Myria AM.
Overall, the MCSI World equity index has lost almost 20% since the 1er January, its worst performance since 2008.
A vintage of the same bitterness on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones fell by 0.60%, the NASDAQ by 0.77% and the S&P 500 by 0.69% on Friday around 12:10 p.m. (Eastern time).
In Asia in 2022, the Tokyo Stock Exchange lost more than 9%, its worst year since 2018, as did the Shanghai Stock Exchanges (-15.13%) and Shenzhen (-21.63%). The Hong Kong market fell more than 15%, the worst performance since 2011.
The past year was marked by inflation and the historic tightening of the monetary policies of the major central banks, which increased the cost of credit to slow down demand in order to curb the rise in prices.
Bonds also suffered, like all asset classes.
European sovereign debt interest rates were at their highest for more than ten years. The rate of the German government bond was worth 2.55% around 12:20 p.m. (Eastern time). The yield on the 10-year US government bond was worth 3.90% compared to just 1.5% in January.
Interest rates have soared “much more than we expected a year ago, with the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates by 425 basis points from March,” said analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya. of Swissquote Bank.
“Everything has been awful this year, except for energy and the dollar,” summarizes the Swissquote Bank analyst.
Supported this year by monetary tightening by the US central bank (Fed), the greenback jumped 6.3% over the year according to the Dollar index, which compares the greenback to a basket of major currencies.
As we head into 2023, “most traders on Wall Street are following the same roadmap that presents investors with the economy going to grow below normal trend, enter a mild recession and experience a bumpy reopening of China. commented Stephen Innes, analyst at SPI Asset management.
On the side of oil, currencies and bitcoin
The barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in February rebounded 1.29%, to 84.53 dollars, and its American equivalent, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery the same month, gained 1.02 %, at $79.18.
Over the year, prices were up 8.54% for Brent and 5.25% for WTI. But they have lost almost 40% of their value from the peaks recorded in March, in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine. European natural gas also fell from the peaks reached in March (345 euros per megawatt hour) and was worth 76.31 euros around 12:30 p.m. (Eastern time).
The yen continued to rise against major currencies, bolstered by bond purchases by the Bank of Japan for the third consecutive day, according to Bloomberg.
The Japanese currency gained 1.31% against the dollar at 131.36 yen per dollar.
The euro gained 0.41% against the greenback at 1.070 dollars for one euro.
Bitcoin was down 0.45% at $16,518. Over the year, the cryptocurrency tumbled over 64%.