As inflation and Omicron concerns persist, the big US benchmarks wobbled between small gains and losses until falling before the bell on the final day of the year.
During trading on New Year’s Eve, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.16% and the S&P 500 dipped by 0.26%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.61%.
Winners and losers: Omicron’s toll
Cases of Covid-19 in the US have reached an all-time daily high. The latest data from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine shows more than 265,000 new cases each day, with the highly contagious Omicron variant the likely culprit for the uptick in patients.
After plummeting during yesterday’s session, shares of Carnival are down by 2.00%, while Norwegian Cruise Line is down 1.33%
Among vaccine makers, Pfizer was up 1.11%, Moderna was 0.95% better and Johnson & Johnson was down 0.72%.
In the tech industry, shares of Apple are 0.35% lower and Meta Platforms slipped 2.33%. Microsoft went 0.88% lower and Amazon went down 1.14%.
Meanwhile, shares of Tesla have fallen 1.27% after financial filings published Tuesday revealed CEO Elon Musk sold another 934,090 shares, representing approximately $1.02bn of the Tesla chief’s stake in the electric car builder.
Oil: Crude dips on New Year’s Eve
Oil futures closed lower on Friday with West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery sinking $1.78, or 2.3%, to end at $75.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In energy stock, shares of Hess are holding a small gain of 0.095%, Chevron is 0.068% down, while Exxon Mobil is 0.66% in the green and ConocoPhillips is 0.14% better.
Gold: Yellow metal ends day up; ends year down
Gold futures closed higher the last day of the year as February gold jumped $14.50, or 0.8%, to end at $1,828.60 an ounce, while March silver added 29.2 cents, or 1.3%, to close at $23.352 an ounce.
Despite ending 2021 on a positive note, gold sank 3.6% on the year, posting its steepest yearly fall since 2015 when it dropped over 10%.
Crypto: Monero stays green ahead of 2022
On the last day of the year, Bitcoin is off 2.69%, Ethereum is down by 2.34%, while Litecoin is 1.79% lower and Monero is 2.00% in positive territory.
Forex: Candian buck outworks US dollar
On Friday, one US dollar equals $0.88 of the euro, $0.74 of the Pound sterling and $1.26 of the Canadian dollar, losing ground on yesterday’s $1.28 holding.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note held at 1.514%. It rose 0.601 percentage points in 2021, representing the largest one-year yield gain since 2013.
Read more: Nvidia stock forecast: Will it keep hitting new highs?
The difference between trading assets and CFDs
The main difference between CFD trading and trading assets, such as commodities and stocks, is that you don’t own the underlying asset when you trade on a CFD.
You can still benefit if the market moves in your favour, or make a loss if it moves against you. However, with traditional trading you enter a contract to exchange the legal ownership of the individual shares or the commodities for money, and you own this until you sell it again.
CFDs are leveraged products, which means that you only need to deposit a percentage of the full value of the CFD trade in order to open a position. But with traditional trading, you buy the assets for the full amount. In the UK, there is no stamp duty on CFD trading, but there is when you buy stocks, for example.
CFDs attract overnight costs to hold the trades (unless you use 1-1 leverage), which makes them more suited to short-term trading opportunities. Stocks and commodities are more normally bought and held for longer. You might also pay a broker commission or fees when buying and selling assets direct and you’d need somewhere to store them safely.
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