Santa Rally fails to materialize as markets head south again
LONDON — Stock markets all around the world fell further Friday amid growing fears about the outlook for the global economy and ongoing concerns about the pace of interest rate increases in the U.S.
Many stock markets are on track to end 2018 more than 10 per cent lower than where they started, with some actually poised to record their worst December since the 1930s. Over the past few years, stock markets in December have generally ended the year strongly, the so-called “Santa Rally.”
“Heading as we are to potentially the worst monthly December performance for U.S. equity markets since the 1930s, it would be easy to think that we could well be heading for further heavy declines,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
“The truth is, we’ve become spoilt over the last nine years by markets that have steadily gone higher without too much of a correction, and the prospect of further tightening of monetary conditions will mean that investors will have to be much more discerning about where they put their money as we head into 2019,” he said.