One of the biggest bulls on Wall Street is betting that the S&P 500 index will continue to rise, and then as the Fed begins to raise interest rates, the index may pull back in the second half of 2022. Leuthold Group chief investment strategist Jim Paulsen said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday that the S&P 500 index is expected to rise above 5,000 points, then enter a downward trend, and rebound to that level at the end of the year. As the index hits a new high at the end of the year, Paulsen said that 2022 is likely to be relatively volatile.

As the scale of imports hit a record high, the US merchandise trade deficit in November also widened to the highest level on record. Data released by the US Department of Commerce on Wednesday showed that the merchandise trade deficit increased to US$97.8 billion in November and was revised to US$83.2 billion in October. The data for November were not adjusted for inflation and exceeded all economists' forecasts obtained in the Bloomberg survey. Imports increased by 4.7% to US$252.4 billion, with the largest increase in imports of industrial supplies. Imports of consumer goods rose to a record US$67 billion. Export value decreased to 154.7 billion U.S. dollars. This year's merchandise trade deficit has set a new record, which is in line with the strong consumer demand and business investment.

As high house prices and low inventories inhibited home purchase activity, an indicator that measures the number of second-hand housing contracts in the United States unexpectedly dropped in November. According to data released by the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday, the second-hand housing contract volume index fell 2.2% from the previous month to 122.4, exceeding the estimates of all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The data shows that the real estate market, boosted by strong demand and low borrowing costs, began to cool towards the end of the year.

Weak copper demand indicates that economic growth in 2022 may be difficult. Coupled with rising interest rates and accelerating inflation, the outlook is alarming. Earlier this month, the London Metal Exchange (LME) cancelled warehouse receipts to the lowest level since 2009. This means that copper demand is weak. The physical delivery premium paid by Chinese importers reached the lowest level since August, showing disturbing signs. As an important raw material for industry and construction, copper demand is a barometer of global economic growth. When copper is in poor condition, it is usually considered a reflection of overall market sentiment. Somewhat confusingly, copper stocks are also very low. This is usually seen as a good signal of strong copper demand and economic growth.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Goldman Sachs Energy Research Director Damien Courvalin said that crude oil prices will rise from current levels to stimulate supply response. U.S. shale oil production has risen, but supply lags behind demand growth. "This needs to be changed in 2022." The core risk of the global natural gas market lies in Europe. The soaring price has not really solved the supply problem here. Europe is at a "critical moment" with inventories. At a historically low level, if the weather turns cold in the first quarter, Europe faces the risk of exhaustion of natural gas. If there is no cold wave in early 2022, US natural gas will decline slightly, but most of the decline has already occurred in the past month.

This year, established cryptocurrencies have failed tokens with a higher rate of return. Researchers predict that this trend may continue. Among the top three digital tokens in terms of market value, Binance Coin significantly leads the other two larger competitors-Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to data from Arcane Research, the Binance Coin issued by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance has risen by about 1,300% this year. In contrast, the number one cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has risen by 65%, and the second largest cryptocurrency, Ether, has risen by 408%.

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