Read for 5 minutes (Reuters) – LONDON (Reuters) – 2021 was never going to be dull after the record pandemic-driven fluctuations in global financial markets last year, and it has shown to be so. A guy examines stock market monitors in Taipei on January 22, 2008. Nicky Loh/Reuters Vaccine programs, as well as some of the largest fiscal and central bank stimulus packages ever seen, have made for riveting viewing. Oil’s 45 percent gain will be the biggest start to a year since 2009, world markets are on track for their second best H1 since 1998, timber is on fire, and amateur traders’ favorite’meme’ stocks AMC and GameStop are up over 2,500 percent and 1,000 percent, respectively. Add in another crazy bitcoin run, digital art selling for tens of millions of dollars while being freely available on the internet, and big gyrations in government bond markets, and you get the picture. “It’s been an extraordinarily dramatic year,” Hans Peterson, head of asset allocation at SEB Investment Management, said. “The fluctuations have been massive. It has not been an easy year; in fact, it has been a chaotic one.” Despite a stronger previous three months, global stocks have gained 11%, but staple U.S. and German government bond markets have experienced their hardest H1 since 2013. According to Bank of America analysts, US President Joe Biden’s spending plans will bring the total amount of global fiscal and monetary stimulus during the last 15 months to $30.5 trillion, equal to the GDP of China and Europe combined. Central banks have purchased $0.9 billion worth of financial assets every hour. This has fueled a $54 trillion increase in worldwide share prices, but it also implies that annualized inflation in the United States is now at 8%, compared to an average of 3% over the last 100 years. “The zeitgeist for the first half has been U.S. fiscal stimulus and its interaction with the bond markets,” said Eric Theoret, a global macro strategist at Manulife Investment Management. Markets around the world in 2021 Other seismic changes include an increase in oil prices, a 20% increase in copper, and a 30-40% increase in wood and food essentials like corn and soybeans, all of which are fueling inflation and other markets. Because of the strong performance of oil, the Canadian dollar and the Russian rouble have outperformed. Metals have helped to strengthen the rand in South Africa, but not the Australian dollar. The British pound has benefited from the UK’s quick COVID vaccine distribution, whilst the Japanese yen and the euro have fallen 6.7 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, since progress on the inoculation front has been slower. REAL TURNAROUNDEmerging markets have also experienced significant changes. Brazil’s drive to raise interest rates has seen its currency rise from the poorest performer in the world at the end of Q1 to the best performer in the world presently, up 5.5 percent. On the other hand, political uncertainty has hit Colombia and Peru, while Turkey’s lira has dropped further 14% after losing 20% last year. Surprisingly, the lira was the best-performing currency in the world for the first six weeks of 2021. After that, bond yields and energy prices rose, and President Tayyip Erdogan fired another central banker. Things have become even crazier in the crypto markets, with bitcoin soaring from $29,000 to just shy of $65,000 in April before plummeting to $36,000 as countries such as China tightened rules. In March, a digital collage sold for $69.3 million in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a type of crypto currency intended to track ownership of intangible digital goods such as photographs, movies, and music. In NFT form, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9 million. The NFT craze Funds or equities tied to innovation, such as the ARK Innovation Fund, Tesla, solar energy stocks, BioTech shares, and special purpose acquisition companies or SPACs, have fallen 15 percent to 30 percent since their early-year peaks, despite a recent resurgence. For example, the FAANGS quintet of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google has up 10% this month. “Of course, we’re in a very atypical rebound,” said Vincent Manuel, chief investment officer at Indosuez Wealth Management, adding that many investors were baffled as to why 10-year Treasury yields had fallen down to 1.5 percent after the Fed pushed up rate hike expectations in the United States. “There’s a contradiction,” Citi strategist Matt King said. “The more effective the Fed and other central banks have been at pushing everything up, the more reliant the markets have gotten on the flood of cash continuing.” A few stocks have soared as a result of meme frenzy. Here are several emerging markets. Here’s a look at global asset performance. Markets around the world in 2021 H1 currency movements Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Elizabeth Howcroft contributed additional reporting and visuals, while Kirsten Donovan edited the piece./nRead More