Wall Street begins 2022 in the name of purchases. At around 4pm Italian time the Dow Jones is flat, with a rise of 0.07% to 356.364 points; the S&P also stuck, around 4,767 points, while the Nasdaq advanced by 0.40% to 15,710 points.
Bank of America recalled in a note that US equities tend to rise in the first days of the year, as it is in this part of the year, in particular, that investors choose the horses to bet on.
History confirms that the first days of January are full of buy: in 11 of the previous 13 years, the S&P 500 actually marked a positive trend in the first week of trading of the new year, collecting on average a gain of the 1.6%.
2021 was a positive year for the US stock exchange, in particular for the S&P 500 index, which jumped on an annual basis by 26.89%, up for the third consecutive year. Third consecutive year of earnings also for the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq, which gained 18.73% and 21.39% respectively.
“2021 was another exceptional year for US equities – Chris Haverland, of Wells Fargo Investment Institute wrote in a note – The markets were supported by … very accommodative fiscal and monetary policies”.
The S&P 500 struck record highs 70 times, the second highest after 77 closes at record highs in 1995.
The best performances were reported by the stocks of companies active in the real estate and energy markets, with the related sub-indices flown by more than 40%. Financials and hi-tech stocks grossed gains of over 30%.
Among the titles protagonists of today’s session Tesla, rallied by more than + 9%.
The giant founded and managed by Elon Musk announced on Sunday that it had delivered a total of 308,600 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021, thus beating both its previous record and analysts’ expectations. The giant founded and managed by Elon Musk produced 305,840 vehicles in the same period. For the full year, deliveries totaled 936,172 cars, up 87% year-on-year.
According to the FactSet consensus, Wall Street analysts had expected shipments of 267,000 electric cars for the fourth quarter of 2021, and 897,000 units for the full year.
Attention to the US government bond market, with 10-year rates rising by more than 7 basis points to 1.574% and Treasury rates with a 30-year maturity rising by 6.5 basis points to 1.954%.
The focus of operators is above all on shorter-term rates, which are more expensive for the Fed’s next monetary policy moves. Pay particular attention to the two-year US bond rates which, at 0.796%, are positioned on the highest values since March of 2020, or since the alarm of the Covid-19 pandemic has sounded all over the world. The explanation lies in the expectations of the markets and the Fed itself on the beginning of a cycle of rate hikes starting this year. The two-year rate jump is noteworthy, considering that the low of 2021 was reached around 0.105%.
From the Jerome Powell Fed dot plot published in December, it emerged that the US central bank plans to raise rates up to three times over the course of 2022, to 1%, from the current range of zero to 0.25. %.