Stocks and bonds slipped along with gold and silver on the last day of last year, ending an otherwise buoyant year on a lackluster note.
The S&P 500 extended a stretch of post-Christmas losses, paring the benchmark’s advance to roughly 16 percent last year. The NASDAQ 100 was down 0.8 percent on Wednesday, its fourth day of losses. Even so, both indices have posted double-digit gains for three consecutive years, their longest winning streak since 2021.
Gold and silver fell at the end of their best year since the 1970s. Gold fell 1 percent, but closed out the year with a 63.7 percent gain, while silver swung back to a loss, returning 9.4 percent after Tuesday’s gain of more than 10 percent. Silver gained more than 140 percent for the year.
Photo: AFP
Investors last year enjoyed blockbuster returns in a market that had been powered by optimism about the vast economic potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and primed by US Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. It was not a smooth ride, with traders weathering swings triggered by a range of forces including US trade policies, geopolitical tensions, concerns over lofty valuations and uncertainty about the path of monetary policy.
For the new year, market research firm Bespoke Investment Group LLC cautions against expecting solid market performance during the first trading day. Since 1953, the S&P 500’s median change to begin a new year has been a 0.3 percent drop, with gains less than half the time, Bespoke said in a statement.
The stock market has traded lower on the first trading day in each of the past three years, the statement said.
Among other asset classes, US Treasuries posted their strongest year of returns since 2020. On Wednesday, Treasuries ticked lower, with the 10-year yield climbing to 4.17 percent.
The US dollar was little changed on Wednesday after three days of wins. Still, the greenback recorded its worst year since 2017, with investors predicting more declines if the next Fed chief opts for deeper interest rate cuts.
In the crypto arena, bitcoin suffered a loss for the year after erasing an earlier rally that had sent it to a record in October.
The digital currency has settled into a range of roughly US$85,000 to US$95,000 following a crash in October that has put it on pace for a first annual loss in three years. After starting last year with a rally spurred by optimism about the crypto-friendly policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration, bitcoin was hit by the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs.
Copper had its best year since 2009, fueled by near-term supply tightness and bets that demand for the metal key in electrification would outpace production.
Copper set several records in an end-of-year surge, rallying 42 percent on the London Metal Exchange last year. Prices dipped 1.1 percent on Wednesday.
Oil closed out the year with its steepest annual loss since 2020 as the market confronts wide-
ranging geopolitical risks and rising supplies across the globe. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark, slipped 0.9 percent to US$57.42 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.8 percent to US$60.85 per barrel.
GROWING OWINGS: While Luxembourg and China swapped the top three spots, the US continued to be the largest exposure for Taiwan for the 41st consecutive quarter The US remained the largest debtor nation to Taiwan’s banking sector for the 41st consecutive quarter at the end of September, after local banks’ exposure to the US market rose more than 2 percent from three months earlier, the central bank said. Exposure to the US increased to US$198.896 billion, up US$4.026 billion, or 2.07 percent, from US$194.87 billion in the previous quarter, data released by the central bank showed on Friday. Of the increase, about US$1.4 billion came from banks’ investments in securitized products and interbank loans in the US, while another US$2.6 billion stemmed from trust assets, including mutual funds,
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