As 2023 searches for a toehold, both the commodities and securities markets continue on the paths plowed for them by last year’s larger-than-expected inflation, Russia’s brutal war, a likely surge in the global pandemic, and a growing power vacuum in American politics.
Securities markets hated 2022’s bad news and most market indices hit yearly highs in early January. After that, it was mostly downhill most of the time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, fell 9 percent last year. A broader market measure, the S&P 500, lost 19.4 percent of its value and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost a gutting 33.1 percent.