How the Joe Biden stimulus has poured fuel on a global market shake-up
16 Mar, 2021 04:25 AM
5 minutes to read
The Biden stimulus, vaccine rollouts and the reopening of economies is realigning investors priorities as they move into banks, industrials and oil companies. Photo / AP
The Biden stimulus, vaccine rollouts and the reopening of economies is realigning investors priorities as they move into banks, industrials and oil companies. Photo / AP
Financial Times
By: Aziza Kasumov, Colby Smith and Naomi Rovnick
America s vast spending programme has added fuel to a powerful upheaval in global stocks, boosting shares in companies that were shunned during the height of the pandemic.
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Bitcoin has been displaying its characteristic super volatility this past week. Oh my goodness, there’s nothing like it: a record new high at $42,000, followed by the first $10,000 daily move in its history. Unfortunately that move was down.
I’ll use round numbers for simplicity here. Bitcoin began October at $10,000; it rose by 30% over the month. It began November at $13,000; it gained another 50%, to begin December at $19,000. December saw gains of more than 50%, and fresh all-time highs as a result. Thus bitcoin began 2021 at $29,000; it carried on making all-time highs, eventually reaching $42,000 last week.
Bitcoin crashed at the weekend – but it’s still up by more than 15% this year alone
The benchmark FTSE 100 has increased almost 8% since December 1 in dollar terms, outperforming the S&P 500, the MSCI World, and the Euro Stoxx indexes, despite the U.K. being among the countries hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic and still suffering from a more contagious variant, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The rally may be seen as a relief rally on Brexit uncertainty, but it still doesn’t make up for its underperformance since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union in 2016. In dollar terms, the FTSE 100 still trades where it closed on June 23, 2016, the day of the Brexit referendum.
British stocks have enjoyed a world-beating rally since the start of December, with international investors beginning to buy back into one of their least-loved countries.