Week ending 31st December 2021.

As you can see from the accompanying table, global equity markets had a positive week (and end to the year) despite the large jump in coronavirus cases.

This optimism was helped by data suggesting that the new omicron variant is far less threatening than previous variants – which should hopefully not only mean that lockdown restrictions and mass disruption should be limited, but the uncertainty we have endured over the past two years may finally be history.

However, as you would expect, shares in travel and leisure companies didn’t share this positivity and were the week’s losers.  For example, IAG (the owner of British Airways) ended the week 2.84% lower; easyJet lost 1.24%; Carnival Cruises down 5.39%; and the tour operator, TUI fell 6.51%.

Looking ahead to this week coming, we have the minutes from the last Fed monetary policy meeting (held on 15 December 2021); US ISM data; US factory orders; US employment data (non-farm payrolls; unemployment rate; participation rate; and average earnings); Eurozone CPI inflation; and Chinese PMI.

The Investment Management Team

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