Ending on June 30, the first half of 2022 was marked by a drop in the world’s major stock markets. The result? It was one of the worst stock market semesters in over 50 years.
Inflation, which reached record figures in several European countries (+10% in Spain in June), had a heavy impact on the stock markets. In France, consumer price inflation reached a level of 6.5% in June and 8.6% for the euro zone, two variables that have been rising steadily since the beginning of the year.
Indeed, the Cac 40 was directly affected by these historic increases. The latter recorded a decline of 10% for the whole of June, confirming one of its worst half-years ever. This translated into a historic 17.2% drop for the first six months of the year 2022. This is the third worst half-year for the Cac 40, since the 17.43% drop in the first half of 2020 and 21% at the end of June 2008.
On the US side, the figures are not positive either. Although inflation has reached lower rates in the United States, the New York Stock Exchange has still suffered from strong fears linked to this rise in prices. Wall Street ended June 30 with the worst six-month period in its history.
The Dow Jones index gave up 0.82% on Thursday and the Nasdaq, 1.33% to 11,028.74 points for the last session of the semester after six very difficult first months. These two respective declines are in addition to those accumulated since January. Since the beginning of the year, the Dow Jones index is down 15.31% while the Nasdaq has lost 29.51%. Two historically low rates.
“The efforts of the central bank (Fed) to fight inflation are causing growing fears of recession that have led Wall Street to its worst half-year since 1970 ” finally, says Edward Moya, analyst for Oanda.
Read also > THE MAIN EUROPEAN STOCK MARKETS UP ON MONDAY
Featured photo : © Press
