European equities gained and Wall Street couldn’t make up its mind Friday as stock markets zig-zagged towards the year-end finishing line with dizzying volatility.
Led by the US market’s roller coaster ride, equity trading during Christmas week has not been for the faint-hearted — or anyone hoping that markets could still somehow eke out gains for 2018.
“The final trading week of 2018 has been explosively volatile and wildly unpredictable,” said analyst Lukman Otunuga at FXTM.
“Global sentiment repeatedly swung from extremely bearish to bullish this week as investors tussled with concerns over slowing global growth, US-China trade developments, Brexit-related uncertainty and a partial US government shutdown.”
Frankfurt ended its final, shortened session of the year with a 1.7 percent gain, which eased some of the pain from a whopping annual loss, but even so, the Dax index still down by 18.3 percent for the year 2018.
