(BFM Bourse) – The CAC 40 had ended the year 2020 with 5.551 points, it buckles 2021 well above 7000 points, a milestone it had never crossed before. Further helped by the unwavering support of central banks, the French market was also able to count on the robustness of the results of its flagships.
To be marked with a white stone. The 2021 vintage will undoubtedly remain in the annals of the stock markets, as the year in which the Parisian market broke its records which were more than 20 years old. It was early November, following a strong quarterly earnings season that fueled investor enthusiasm for the strength of the economic recovery. If the CAC 40 has since known turmoil with in particular the appearance of the omicron variant at the end of November, the barometer of the tricolor rating ends the year even higher, close to its new absolute peak reached this Wednesday at more than 7,200 points.
Slightly in the red (-0.28% to 7,153.03 points) in a deserted market (840 million euros traded), the last (half) session of the year 2021 this Friday only marginally marred the convincing annual performance of the CAC (+ 28.85%). The flagship index thus marks its 6th highest annual increase since its creation and its best since 1999.
The CAC 40 outperforms the main global indices
Sufficiently rare to underline it: the CAC thus outperforms all the major global stock market indices, from the German Dax (now) 40 (+ 15.8%) to the New York S&P 500 (+ 27.2%), which nevertheless recorded on Wednesday its 70th historic record closing in 2021.
“We were right to maintain a form of optimism this year on the markets,” said Nicolas Budin, head of equity management at Myria AM. The recovery was indeed there in 2021, as evidenced by better than expected corporate results. The markets also benefited from the very accommodating bias of governments and central banks. In an attempt to stem runaway inflation, the latter – Fed in the lead – however recently changed their tune, paving the way for several rate hikes in 2022.
If the health crisis is not yet behind us, and even far from it since the number of contaminations has reached new records in recent days in France, fears related to the omicron variant are fading while the number of hospitalizations is increasing proportionally. much slower. Reassured about the dangerousness of this new strain, operators are approaching 2022 with optimism.
Societe Generale, highest increase in the CAC 40 in 2021
The results for the year 2021 are therefore largely positive, and this is reflected in observing individual performances. Within the CAC 40, only 9 groups show a negative variation over the last 12 months. Two of them recorded particularly pronounced falls, namely Worldline (-38%) and Alstom (-33%). In the other direction, 8 stocks jumped by more than 50% and the best annual performance goes to Societe Generale (+ 77.4%), ahead of Hermès (+ 74.6%) and Capgemini (+ 70%).
Quentin Soubranne – © 2022 BFM Bourse