The market weathered a number of challenges along the way.
Still, Wall Street got a boost from the Federal Reserve, which kept its key short-term interest rate at near zero all year.
government’s consumer price index skyrocketed 6.8% in the 12 months that ended in November — the sharpest such jump since 1982.
The rise of small investors is one reason stocks represented a quarter of household assets as of the third quarter, up from only 13% a decade ago, according to Wells Fargo Securities.
Low bond yields have been one of the main reasons that stock prices have surged so high: With bonds paying so little, there’s a widespread belief on Wall Street that there is no alternative to buying stocks.
Although EVs will only be 5.8% of global new vehicle sales this year, that figure could grow close to 15% in 2025, says research firm LMC Automotive.
A global chip shortage had repercussions across much of the economy in 2021, thwarting consumers who faced delays in getting new cars, video game consoles and an array of other products.
What made 2021 different was how many more people experienced those swings, as crypto crossed into the mainstream.
Anxious investors knocked more than $1 trillion off the value of high-flying Chinese tech companies on foreign stock exchanges after the ruling Communist Party tightened control over their industries.
It was also a blowout year for special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, which raise money from public investors with the intent of buying a private company later.
The biggest crunch came in Europe, where by December natural gas prices had soared more than nine times their level at the start of the year amid fears that reserves would run out in a colder than average winter.
The debate over social media’s impact on the public exploded when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked tens of thousands of damning internal documents about the harm the company is causing to its users around the world.