Wall Street is heading to put a finishing touch to the second year of the pandemic, which has left higher yields than the first and new all-time highs, while the recovery places the sector on the podium. Energy and big business continue to see an opportunity in every crisis.

WALL STREET PANDEMIC: PART TWO

They say that second parts were never good, but Wall Street has had better profits in its second year of pandemic than in 2020, when the outbreak of the coronavirus ended the longest bull cycle in history, induced a brief bear market and gave way to a brilliant period.
In the 2021 count, the Dow Jones has appreciated almost 20% and the S&P 500 near 30%, well above the 7% and 16%, respectively, of 2020. The Nasdaq, dominated by technology, is it has shot up 23%, a remarkable figure that pales compared to the meteoric 44% last year.

THE ENERGY SECTOR, WINNER

The energy sector is crowned the winner with a rise of 49%, which coincides with the recovery in fuel prices, especially in the barrel of Texas oil, whose futures were traded negatively in 2020 and now they trade 60% higher.
It is no surprise, then, that the company with the best performance this year in the S&P 500 is an energy company: the oil company Devon Energy, which has appreciated 180% after raising its dividends and share buybacks, measures that it shares with other players. of the industry.

HAS THE TECH BUBBLE PUNCHED?

Tech “pretty girls” who benefited from the digitization of leisure and work have fallen out of favor this year, including Peloton, which grew 434% then and now loses 76%, and Zoom, which rose 396 % and now yields 45%.

Alphabet-led “Big Techs” have continued to rise, but for the first time in five years the Nasdaq is underperforming that of the S&P 500, and experts point to looking for stocks that will benefit from a return to normalcy and anticipation of tougher monetary policy.

THE ‘BOOM’ IN STOCK EXCHANGES

IPOs experience a ‘boom’ thanks to low interest rates and liquidity injected by the Federal Reserve, and this year twice as many companies have opened on Wall Street than in 2020 , almost a thousand, among them the Nubank bank, the dating app Bumble or the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian.
Even former President Donald Trump joined in this frenzy by deciding to launch his social network, “TRUTH Social”, through a “spac”, the fashionable financial vehicle: a firm whose sole purpose is to merge with startups ‘with great potential to get them listed avoiding traditional channels.

THE FORERS OF ‘WALL STREET BETS’ AGAINST THE FUNDS

An army of small investors caused a stock market earthquake last January, when they coordinated from a forum called “Wall Street Bets”, on the Reddit platform, to attack large investment funds That they were getting rich betting on the fall of companies in distress, in that case GameStop.
That stock market revolution made the funds lose some 20,000 million dollars and reached the US Congress, where an audience starring the user “DeepFuckingValue”, a young man who was investing from his basement, revealed the risks of these operations and inequality in market access.

MUSK AND OTHER TECHNOLOGY CHIEFS SELL THEIR SHARES

“I propose to sell 10% of my shares in Tesla.” Its founder, Elon Musk, a well-known social media agitator and one of the richest men in the world, left the decision in the hands of his followers on Twitter and focused on the succulent collection of the technology bosses who sell their capital.
Other great millionaires of the 21st century, including Jeff Bezos (Amazon) or Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) have fattened their fortunes by disposing of their shares at historic prices, and their joint sales amounted this month to 69,000 million dollars, 30% more than in all of last year.

THE CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND THEIR JOURNEY ‘TO THE MOON’

The tweeting harangues of Musk, named Person of the Year by Time magazine, have been behind the astronomical rush of dogecoin – the cryptocurrency represented by the meme of a dog – which even triggered a 11,000% in May between calls to touch “the moon” and then fell.
Despite everything, investor interest in digital currencies seems to have grown and this is reflected in bitcoin, which this November reached the heights of its price, exceeding $ 69,000 after the launch of the first index fund (ETF, in English) linked to the main cryptocurrency.

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