A weak pound, even after a rally once Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng had been bundled off stage, helped
In a year of three prime ministers, war in Europe, recession, rising mortgage costs, double-digit inflation, enormous energy bills, strikes, higher taxes, a dramatic plunge in the pound in October and a debacle with pension funds that the Bank of England said threatened to create “a material risk to financial stability”, you may not necessarily have bet on the FTSE 100 index to end 2022 higher than it started.
There are still a few trading days to go, so an “up” year is not guaranteed. But, at 7,469, the index was in positive territory for 2022 by a margin of 1.1% at Thursday’s close. Include dividends paid by the 100 constituents and the total return is closer to 5%. You won’t get rich quickly at that rate but you should sleep at night. Over in the US, the broadly based S&P 500 index has slumped by a fifth this year.
