FTSE 100 on track for 5% rise in 2024 after solid year for shares – business live
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Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. It’s the final trading day of the year, when investors will be adding up their profits (or losses) and turning their attention to 2025. 2024 has been another year of gains in the stock markets, with record highs seen on both sides of the Atlantic. Wall Street has led the charge, helped by the boom in tech stocks which continued over the last 12 months.
Investors in the UK stock market have enjoyed gains too – the blue-chip FTSE 100 index is on track to record a 5% rise this year, broadly in line with the European average. That would be its best year since 2021, when it rose 14.3%, and follows a 0.9% rise in 2022 and a 3.8% gain in 2023.
The ‘Footsie’ is ending the year on the back foot, though, down 2% in December. Yesterday it closed at 8121 points, a fair way shy of the record high of 8,474 set in May when falling inflation and hopes of interest rate cuts were lifting stocks. The smaller FTSE 250 index, seen as a better barometer of the UK economy, has gained around 3.6%.
That doesn’t include the income from dividends, though, which shareholders received over the year. As AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould puts it:. “Total returns from the UK stock market in 2024 handily beat cash, bonds and inflation, but the poor comparisons with the USA remain the stick with which the FTSE 100 is constantly beaten.
