Share Market Performance in 2015

An impressive rally in the final weeks of December failed to get share investors back into the ‘black’ for 2015.  The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index finished the year down 2.1 percent at 5411.02.

Despite the December rally, investors can only look wistfully at those heady days of April. Our best day was April 27th, when  the market closed at a high of 5982.7 as low interest rates around the world pushed investors into shares.

Investors don’t need to look too hard to spot the stragglers who held the index back in 2015 – the two biggest segments of the Australian market, banks and miners, experienced a year to forget.

On a happy note, the ASX accumulation index, which includes dividends paid, finished the year up 3.03 percent.  Given we have a strong focus on dividend paying shares, it has certainly helped our client portfolios through what was generally a flat year for investors.

Jan 2016 update!!!  No sooner do we write about the December rally than the sharemarket reverses!  AMP’s Leading Economist discusses the January reversal in the below video.