UK Stock markets close to a new peak
On the last day of trading for 2017, UK stock markets leaped to a record high level. The FTSE 100 index of leading blue chip company stocks finished nearly 1 per cent at 7.687.77. While the FTSE250 ended at 20, 726.26.
Meanwhile to leading US indexes have both risen by over 20 per cent this year till now, boosted by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax reform, under which the US corporate tax will fall from 35 per cent to 21 per cent in 2018.
The report shows that lesser billionaires also had a vintage year, as the strong gains on the world’s stock market resulting in making the richest even richer. The world’s wealthiest people gained $1 trillion in 2017.
The pound is worth around 10 per cent less before the EU referendum, which made UK companies more affordable to overseas investors, who pumped up the value of their foreign earnings.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, the no 1 ranked billionaire had added $34.2bn wealth in 2017 to become the world’s richest person at $99.6bn, as Amazon’s share prices surged.