In the GCC region where the Kingdom led the downturn, the UAE’s main index DFMGI dropped 0.8 percent, followed by Oman’s MSX30 which closed 0.1 percent lower.
OPEC and the entire energy industry should thank Saudi Arabia for helping oil prices recover from negative territory last year, and the market would be best left to the Kingdom to manage, Robert Yawger, executive director of Energy Futures at Mizuho Securities said in an interview on Bloomberg Television in July.
Bitcoin more than doubled in price from January to early November, reaching a record $67,554, but has had a torrid time since and was trading on the last day of the year at $48,276, yet still 66 percent higher in 2021.
Later that month, a major customer of Tether, Alex Mashinsky, told the Financial Times the company lends out new stablecoins in return for cryptocurrencies, further calling into question Tether’s founding promise that it uses only real dollars to issue its tokens.
There are as many predictions for the price of bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies as there are days of the year, so we won’t even go there but, if previous years are anything to go by, expect more volatility.
Turkey’s BIST index which surged more than 60 percent to record highs this year as stocks were rendered cheap by a lira fall and supported by looser monetary policy, was set to end the year up 27 percent.
“Our success as a leading investor lies in our ability to identify uniquely-placed quality businesses to venture into, and equally importantly, assess monetization opportunities to ensure that we maintain significant capital growth and a healthy portfolio of business investments,” said Khaled Al Qubaisi, CEO, Real Estate and Infrastructure Investments at Mubadala.