On Wall Street, stocks fell on Wednesday but the S&P 500 closed 2014 near a record high. The index hit records in more than 50 sessions throughout the year.
"Solid year in spite of significant headwinds that could have easily derailed a multi-year bull market," said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Clearpool Group in New York. "The most the bears got out of this year was a 10 per cent correction on an intra-day basis. The markets stubbornly moved higher, for good foundational reasons."
Also Read
The S&P 500 ended a third straight year of double-digit percentage gains. The benchmark added 11.4 per cent this year. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 7.5 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 13.4 per cent for the year.
On a total return basis, the S&P 500 gained 13.7 per cent this year.
On the day, the Dow fell 160 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 17,823.07, the S&P 500 lost 21.45 points, or 1.03 per cent, to 2,058.9 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 41.39 points, or 0.87 per cent, to 4,736.05. In Latin America, Argentina's benchmark stock index added 59 per cent in 2014 and Brazil's Bovespa shed nearly three per cent. Colombia's IGBC fell 11 per cent and Mexico's IPC was little changed, up less than one per cent.
The stand-out equity performer among top economies this year was China, where the CSI300 index ended 2014 with gains of nearly 52 per cent. The index added more than 25 per cent in December alone, its best month since April 2007, in part as foreigners won wider access to Chinese stocks.
"China stocks have done really well this year and the dollar move has also been very interesting," said Alvin Tan, an FX strategist at Societe Generale in London. "It barely moved against the other major currencies in the first (half) of the year and all the big gains came in the second."
The dollar ended 2014 up 12.8 per cent against a basket of major currencies, its best performance since 1997. An expected start to a Federal Reserve tightening cycle could strengthen the dollar's appeal in the new year. The euro, undermined by bets that the European Central Bank will have to start buying government bonds to avert deflation, was down 0.5 per cent at $1.2098, having touched a two and a half year low of $1.2095.
The Russian rouble was down 5 per cent on the day as a more than 76 per cent plunge for the year marked its worst performance since Russia defaulted in 1998.
The young bitcoin currency is closing the year only slightly better than the rouble, falling 57 per cent at about $318. It peaked at $995 last January.
US government debt that matures in 20 years and beyond booked a 27 per cent return, according to Barclays. That would be its biggest annual gain since 2011, when it generated a 33 per cent return.
Crude oil prices LCOc1CLc1, already down by half from this year's peak, slumped again on Wednesday. Brent fell as much as 3.7 per cent to trade below $56 a barrel and US crude was down 3 per cent at its session low. Weak Chinese manufacturing data and demand concerns weighed on prices.
Brent was last down 0.6 per cent at $57.55 a barrel and WTI fell 0.6 per cent to $53.80 a barrel. For the year Brent is down 48 per cent and WTI is down 46 per cent.