That2022 was an eventful year for Gola stock investors. The war in Ukraine, high inflation, volatility in commodity and currency exchange rates, continuous interest rate hikes by central banks and China’s strict covid restrictions have taken hold of global stock markets at various stages.
In this year’s setbacks, it is estimated that at least $14 trillion ($14 trillion) in value has been lost in global stocks. This will make 2022 the second worst year on record. The volatility in the market was also high, with over 300 interest rate hikes by various central banks and 3 rallies of more than 10% on the back of inflation. Meanwhile the performance of major stock markets for the year 2022 is explained below.
India
The Indian stock market has shown a remarkable performance at the global level, despite facing severe volatility throughout the year. NSE’s benchmark Nifty and BSE’s flagship Sensex have recorded around 5 percent gains so far this year. Major indexes fell to one-year lows in June after a sharp setback. But the indices rallied more than 25 percent in the subsequent six months and rewrote all-time record levels by the end of November. This year the Sensex recorded a low of 50,921 and a high of 63,583.
Meanwhile, 2022 has witnessed 14 times rallies in the Sensex index that have gained more than 1000 points. The Sensex’s best daily gain this year was a 1,736-point surge on February 25. Similarly, the index’s heaviest daily loss was the 2,702-point fall on February 24, when the Ukraine war broke out. Meanwhile, stocks in the IT and pharma sectors, which had shone during the Covid pandemic, faced a setback in 2022. But sectoral indices of power, utilities, capital goods and energy gained 20 to 30 per cent. Shares of PSUs and Adani Group gave investors golden gains, while shares of new generation companies like Paytm gave heavy losses.
US
2022 was a challenging year for investors in the US, the world’s largest stock market, with high inflation, tighter monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, interest rate hikes and subsequent recession fears. The benchmark S&P 500 index, closely watched by global investors, has lost nearly 20 percent this year. This is the worst performance the index has recorded since 2008 when the US financial crisis hit. The S&P-500’s closing low was 3,577 in October. The index is now just above 6 percent. Similarly, the S&P-500’s high for the year was 4,796 on January 3.
China
The stock market in China, the world’s second-largest economy, was also reflected in the economic slowdown due to stricter Covid-19 restrictions and factory shutdowns. The easing of Covid restrictions in late November helped reduce the impact of this year’s losses as the indices rallied partially. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s Hang Seng Index has lost 17% so far this year. Similarly, the benchmark indices of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets, which comprise China’s top listed companies, are projected to decline by 12 percent and 18 percent respectively in 2022.
Europe
The energy crisis, inflation and interest rates raised by central banks following the war in Ukraine pushed the stock markets in the European region to the path of volatility in 2022. Europe’s major stock indices, the DAX (Germany), have lost 11 percent, CAC-40 (France) 8 percent, and FTSE-100 (Britain) 1 percent each in the period to 2022.