After Big 2021, Wall Street Starts 2022 on Strong Note

Stocks are getting the new year off to a solid start, posting solid gains on the first day of trading after closing out 2021 with big gains for the third year in a row. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% in early trading Monday. It rose 26.9% last year. Technology companies and banks were among the biggest winners in the early going, and electric car maker Tesla rose 10% after reporting strong delivery numbers for 2021. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.59%. The big event on the economic calendar this week is the government’s jobs report on Friday.

Frankfurt and Paris opened higher while Seoul and India advanced. Hong Kong retreated. Markets in Britain, China, Japan and Australia were closed.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index slipped Friday amid lingering worries about the coronavirus’s omicron variant but ended 2021 with an annual gain of 26.9%.

“It remains to be seen to what extent the optimism of the New Year will be reflected in financial markets,” said Venkateswaran Levanya of Mizuho Bank in a report.

In early trading, Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.8% to 16,010.77 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.9% to 7,213.57.

On Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.4% higher. On Friday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% and the Dow slid 0.2%. The Nasdaq fell 0.6%.

In Asian trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.5% to 23,274.75 and the Kospi in South Korea rose 0.4% to 2,988.77.

One of China’s biggest real estate developers, Evergrande Group, which is struggling to avoid a default on $310 billion of debt, announced Monday it had asked for trading of its shares in Hong Kong to be suspended ahead of an announcement of unspecified “inside information.”

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude rose 86 cents to $86.07 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.78 on Friday to $75.21. Brent crude, the price basis for international oils, gained 87 cents to $78.65 per barrel in London. It lost $1.75 the previous session to $77.78 per barrel.

The dollar advanced to 115.29 yen from Friday’s 115.09 yen. The euro declined to $1.1340 from $1.1383.