Independent Financial Life Planners Bishop's Stortford: Markets: (Data compiled by The Outsourced Marketing Department)

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Markets: (Data compiled by The Outsourced Marketing Department)

The US Fed’s announcement in mid-December, that it is to finally ‘taper’ its quantitative easing programme by $10 billion a month, paradoxically had a very bullish effect on the global equity risk markets.

With all eyes on the Dow Jones Index; it rose 3.05% to 16,576.66, an all-time high. To put this in perspective the index has now risen by 26% in the year.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq soared in 2013, gaining a massive 40% over the year and closing up 2.87% in the month at 4,176.59.

Taking its lead from the prospects of a strengthening US economy, here in the UK the FTSE100 gained 1.48% to close at 6,749.1. That represents an annual gain of 14.43%, whilst the wider FTSE250 closed at 15,935.35 for a rise of 3.03% in the month and 28.77% for the year.Elsewhere in Europe, the Euro Stoxx50 improved by just 0.54% in December to close out the year at 3,109.0 but recorded an annual gain of 17.95%.

The Japanese market, however, won the gold medal, seeing a massive improvement of 56.72% over the year to finish December at 16,291.31.

With all the attention on the equity markets, the foreign exchange markets had a quiet month. Sterling continued to improve again against the US greenback, finishing the year at $1.66, up 1.84% in 2013. Against the Euro it closed December at €1.21, flat on the month, but down 1.63% from a year earlier. The Euro itself improved against the US Dollar, ending the year at $1.37. Gold bullion had a bad year, losing 27.19%, and closed out 2013 at $1,220.22 an ounce.

Oil, having had a volatile year, dipping to as low as $99.95 during 2013, finished at $111.21 a barrel as measured by the Brent Crude benchmark, flat on the year.

Issued by: Enable Independent Financial Life Planners
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