FTSE ends year on low after early promise

LONDON

THE FTSE 100 Index left investors out of pocket this year, finishing 4.9 per cent down to close at 6,242.3.

On the final half-day session of 2015 the Footsie fell 31.7 points, weighed by oil prices that hovered around 11-year lows.

Brent Crude fell 30 cents to $36.16 per barrel, as major suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia continued pumping crude in a bid to defend their global market shares. The oil price has fallen by more than a third this year.

It has been a turbulent 12 months on the London Stock Exchange, and markets across the world.

The Footsie had opened the year at 6,566.

Spreadex financial analyst Connor Campbell said 2015 has been “quite a spectacular fizzle out from the UK index, especially considering that it was at all-time highs back in April”.

It was a year that saw the return of the mega deal, led by Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev buying London-listed Peroni and Grolsch group SABMiller for £71 billion in one of the biggest takeovers in corporate history.

Next came Royal Dutch Shell’s £47bn agreed takeover bid for gas explorer BG announced in April.

February 24 saw the London market break a record that had stood for more than 15 years as the FTSE 100 hit a new all-time high, boosted by investor optimism about the financial crisis in Greece.

Britain’s benchmark index of leading shares closed at 6,958.89, which meant the FTSE 100 finally surpassed its previous intraday peak of 6950.6 set on December 30, 1999, just before the dotcom bubble burst.

The index reached a series of all-time highs before hitting its peak of 7104 on April 27, boasting a total market value of £2 trillion.

But all this was to change in the summer as China’s economic woes began to unfold.

Global markets were spooked as China posted slowing gross domestic product growth figures of around seven per cent after almost a decade of double-digit increases in GDP.

Beijing responded with a series of currency devalutions of its yuan to stimulate its economy.

In London, the stock market saw a number of 100-point plus falls, as some heavyweight oil and commodity stocks plunged.

Adding to world market jitters throughout the year was the recovery in the US economy. This led to guidance from US Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen that the first US interest rate hike from near-zero levels since June 2006 was on the cards.

Uncertainty over when the Fed would pull the trigger on a US hike caused global markets to rise and fall throughout the year.

The Footsie fell to a three-year low of 5874.1 in early December amid intense speculation over a US rate hike and further falls in oil prices.

This was the lowest level since December 2012 and gave the market a value of £1.6 trillion.

In a volatile final month of the year London stocks rose after the US Fed finally raised its key interest rate by 0.25 per cent on December 16, ending a year of uncertainty over monetary policy.

But as December drew on, shares began to fall as oil prices slid further, leaving the market to end the year with more of a whimper than a bang.

NEW YORK

WALL Street dropped yesterday, leaving the S&P 500 marginally lower for a year marked by record highs as well as a major sell-off.

In a reversal of one of 2015’s main trends, oil shares rose, with the S&P energy sector up 0.34 per cent and alone among gainers.

Much of the blame for this year’s underwhelming stock market performance can be laid at the feet of crude oil prices, which lost a third of their value. The energy sector fell 24 per cent, its worst annual performance since the global recession.

On the last trading day of 2015, the S&P 500 fell 0.94 per cent to 2,043.94 points, leaving it with a loss of 0.71 per cent for the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 2.23 per cent for the year. The Nasdaq Composite gained 5.73 per cent after surpassing levels not seen since the dot-com bubble in 2000.

Eight of the 10 worst performers on the S&P this year were energy companies, led by Chesapeake

Energy’s 77-per cent slump. The consumer discretionary sector was the S&P’s best performer, rising 8.43 per cent thanks to Netflix’s 134 per cent rise and Amazon’s 118 per cent surge.

Consumer stocks also took the top three spots on the Dow, led by

Nike’s 30 per cent increase in 2015. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.02 per cent yesterday to end at 17,425.03. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.15 per cent to 5,007.41. Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors fell, led by a 1.43 per cent fall in the technology sector.

Apple dropped 1.92 per cent, ending the year down 4.5 per cent, its first annual loss since 2008.