Wall Street ends its worst year since 2008 down

The New York Stock Exchange concluded with a small drop on Friday the worst year since 2008 for the stock market.

The Dow Jones index fell 0.22% to 33,147.25 points, the technology-dominated Nasdaq lost 0.11% to 10,466.48 points and the S&P 500 dropped 0.25% to 3,839.50 points. .

“The last session confirms what we had all year: a horrible stock market,” summed up Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.

“And as we move into the new year, the chances of a rebound in the first quarter are probably very limited,” he added as bond yields climbed further.

Those at ten years were at 3.87% against 3.81% at 9:00 p.m. GMT.

The year 2022 turns out to be the worst year for the stock market since the financial and real estate crisis of 2008, with the market’s fall having been caused mainly by inflation and interest rate hikes by the American central bank (Fed) for combat it, not to mention the war in Ukraine which has increased energy costs.

At the close on Friday, since the beginning of the year, the Dow Jones ended down 8.78%, the Nasdaq fell 33.10% and the S&P 500 19.10%.

“The year has clearly been difficult for investors. 2022 started with a Fed that changed its attitude and with the war in Ukraine,” summed up Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.

“Along the way, we’ve had the highest inflation in four decades, double-digit losses in stocks and bonds, rapidly rising interest rates, continued lockdowns for the world’s second-largest economy and a slowdown in the real estate market”, listed the analyst.

He tried to remain optimistic for the year 2023 assuring that “historically”, it is “rare to have two consecutive years of decline in the markets”.

Yet it has happened four times since 1928, notably during the crisis of 1929, the implosion of the internet bubble in 2002 and the real estate rout of 2008.

Friday trading volumes were very low and the agenda of economic indicators was almost empty.

The activity index for the very industrial region of Chicago (PMI) turned out to be a little better than expected at 44.9 (+7.7 points) but remained in the contraction zone in December, which did not improve the mood of the few traders in the market.

Next week will be short with the markets closing on Monday to observe New Year’s Day but there will be the minutes of the last Fed meeting on Wednesday and especially the employment figures for December on Friday.

At the rating, the action of the airline Southwest recovered the head (+0.87% to 33.67 dollars). After a disastrous Christmas week with more than 15,000 flights canceled in eight days, it promised that its operations were gradually returning to normal.

However, the company’s management warned Thursday, according to CNBC, that this episode would “certainly” affect its fourth quarter results.

The big names in technology barely managed to end the session in the green like Apple (+0.25% to 129.93%) or Tesla (+1.12% to 123.18 dollars).

But over the year, these popular stocks fell sharply. Tesla is worth 65% less than at the start of the year, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, 64% less. Alphabet, which oversees Google, fell by 38.6% and Apple by 26.8%.

Among the year’s winners were the oil company Chevron, Merck Laboratories and the insurance company Travelers.