Investors hit by bumper losses after a year in which every stock market index lost money
The UK was the ninth best performing market, falling by 11pc, according to Standard & Poor’s.
The UK was the ninth best performing market, falling by 11pc, according to Standard & Poor’s.
11:39AM GMT 21 Dec 2011
It is a far cry from the beginning of the year when stock market pundits were in an optimistic mood but the Japan tsunami disaster and a full-blown eurozone crisis in the summer blew any predictions widely off course.
According to Standards & Poor’s the top developed market was the US, which fell by 4.6pc, while the top performing European markets was Ireland, which was down 10.01pc.
Not surprisingly, Greece suffered the worst performance, falling by 60pc, but nations expected to deliver the goods also suffered badly.
The BRIC nations – which many expected to be immune from the developed nations’ meltdown, also had a dire year with Brazil shares falling by 26pc, Russia by XX pc, China by 22pc and India which fell by 37pc.
The top emerging markets were Indonesia (-0.71pc), Philippines (-2.47pc) and Thailand (-4.44pc).
Many experts are still in a cautious mood. Mike Lenhoff at Brewin Dolphin said: “Our expectation of how well the equity markets can do in 2012 is limited but we still hopeful that the FTSE 100 will end 2012 at around 5850. Much will depend on what progress emerges on the eurozone’s ‘fiscal compact’. However, we also expect equity markets to gain support from a more encouraging outlook for the US economy. Also, in view of the scope for conventional policy stimulus in the developing economies, we remain optimistic about the contribution they, and notably China, will make to the global economy in the latter part of the year and beyond.”
