01/05/2022 – The year 2021 was dominated by the start-up of vaccination programs, fiscal aid packages, still very loose central bank policies, and strong earnings growth. These factors led to an extremely pleasing year for equities, with earnings momentum slowing in the second half of the year. From September onwards, fears of interest rate hikes, very high inflation and new Covid-19 variants caused uncertainty and increased volatility, so that not all indices were able to maintain their highs.  In the fourth quarter, not least the American S&P 500 and the Swiss SMI were convincing with a gains of 10.6% each, while the DAX lagged behind with plus 4.1%.  The S&P 500 ended the year with an extraordinary plus of 26.9%. The DAX returned 15.8% in 2021, while 2021 was a difficult year for bonds in general (Euro Gov. Bond Index -3.6%), a year of a rather weak euro
(-7.1% vs. USD) and a disappointing year for gold with -4.0% in USD per oz.

Read more in the Strategy Update from the fourth quarter 2021.

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