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Futures on benchmarks in Shanghai declined after mainland Chinese gauges tumbled in December’s final day of trading. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes dropped for a fourth consecutive session in a year-end pullback that shaved more than a trillion dollars from large-cap market values.
Shares in Sydney were little changed while futures showed Hong Kong’s benchmark may advance slightly. Japanese markets are closed through Jan. 6. New Zealand remains on holiday, while South Korea will have a late open. US equity futures slipped.
The yen fell Thursday to around 157 per dollar, priming the currency for a third daily drop against the dollar, after a strong run for the greenback. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index had its best year in nearly a decade.
Oil was steady in the first session of the new year after an industry report indicated shrinking US crude stockpiles. Russian gas stopped flowing to Europe via Ukraine, closing off a route that’s operated for five decades. Both sides confirmed the halt Wednesday after a key transit deal expire
A broad gauge of Treasuries eked out an annual gain in 2024, albeit a smaller one than in 2023. Treasuries trading is closed in Asia given the holiday in Japan.
In other news over the New Year period, Nippon Steel Corp. offered to give the US government a veto over any reduction in US Steel Corp.’s production capacity in a last-ditch effort to win President Joe Biden’s approval for its takeover of the American company. Shares of US Steel surged by the most in a year.
In China, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. agreed to sell its shares in Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. to private equity firm DCP Capital, unloading a high-profile physical commerce asset to focus on its core online business. Meanwhile, China’s BYD Co. reported a year-end surge to push total sales to 4.25 million passenger cars last year.
At a macroeconomic level, the world’s second-largest economy is expected to expand around 5% for the full year of 2024, President Xi Jinping said. China’s central bank injected 1.7 trillion yuan ($233 billion) of cash in December, dialing up liquidity support for the economy and financial markets at year-end.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said the country’s economy performed better than expected in 2024. Gross domestic product expanded 4%, Wong said in his New Year’s message. That beat the trade ministry’s November forecast for an expansion of around 3.5%.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s political crisis continued, with Acting President Choi Sang-mok on Wednesday rejecting an attempt by his advisers to resign en masse.
Fresh data showed Australian house prices declined for the first time in 22 months in December as buyers increasingly found themselves priced out of the market, while the supply of properties increased.
Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. was the world’s most active sovereign wealth fund last year as it ramped up deal-making across everything from private credit to artificial intelligence. That came as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which was the most active in 2023, slowed down spending and refocused on investing at home.
Stocks, particularly those of US technology companies, outshone virtually every other asset class in 2024. The S&P 500 gained 23%, rising for the fifth time in six years, in an advance that added $10 trillion to US equity values. The MSCI All-Country World Index climbed 16%.
Even as the US economy chugs along, cross-asset investors are heading into 2025 facing an array of challenges, first among them inflation and the Federal Reserve’s response to it — especially after Chair Jerome Powell signaled there would be fewer interest-rate cuts going forward. Another question is how President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-growth policies will affect consumer prices and federal finances.
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