A seller of replicas of the famous Wall Street bull (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP / SPENCER PLATT)
The New York Stock Exchange closed 2021 on a quiet note on Friday, posting year-round increases of 18.7% for the Dow Jones, 21.3% for the Nasdaq and 27% for the S&P 500, despite the continuation of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Delta and Omicron variants.
According to final results at the close, in a very limited market, the Dow Jones index lost 0.16% to 36,338.30 points.
The technological-colored Nasdaq dropped 0.61% to 15,644.97 points and the S&P 500 0.26% to 4,766.18 points.
Over the year, the Dow Jones climbed 18.7% in 2021 against 7.2% in 2020.
The Nasdaq, which swelled 43% last year as many tech companies took advantage of pandemic conditions, advanced 21.3% over 2021 as a whole.
The extended S&P 500 index, breaking 70 records this year, rose 27% after + 16% in 2020.
“It feels good to end on a calm note a year which was surprisingly good for investors but very volatile in December,” Art Hogan of National Securities told AFP.
“There were few market participants on Friday and the moves one way or the other are not surprising,” the analyst said.
The indices were boosted in 2021 by progress in the fight against the pandemic and by generous monetary policies.
“2021 will have been a very good year. The advance of the S&P 500 is the 11th strongest since the Second World War,” said Sam Stovall, stock statistics specialist and analyst at CFRA.
“The market has known 70 records, it is the strongest score since 1954 and 1955 when there were 77 peaks”, he added.
Yields on Treasuries remained stable at 1.51% on Friday against 1.50% the previous day for 10-year bonds as the bond market closed earlier.
The eleven sectors of the S&P were divided. Six were in the green with consumer products in the lead (+ 0.71%) while five were in the red starting with communications (-1.21%) in a weak market which amplified the movements.
Tesla, suffering the backlash of a recall of 675,000 of its vehicles for trunk issues, lost 1.27% to $ 1,056.78. The share of the electric car maker has been one of the market leaders this year, climbing 40%.
Several big names in tech have been the object of profit taking as investors continue to monitor Omicron’s development on the economy. Facebook (Meta) dropped, -2.33%, Amazon 1.14%.
Vaccine maker Pfizer rose 1.11% to $ 59.05 after the endorsement of a British regulatory agency granted to its anti-Covid pill, Paxlovid.
© 2021 AFP
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