From bitcoin to Belize: a year of living dangerously on global markets
New York/Hong Kong — It was a great year to hold bitcoin, but a bad time to have been invested in the Uzbek soum. As 2017 winds to a close, a look at the winners and losers around the globe shows that, broadly speaking, the riskiest assets performed well, with bullish sentiment on display in stocks, emerging-market sovereigns and corporate debt. Securities generally seen as the safest and least volatile bets — think Japanese government bonds — trailed behind. There was perhaps no investing idea that attracted more attention in 2017 than cryprocurrencies, from Jamie Dimon’s dismissal to Katy Perry quizzing Warren Buffett about the subject. Bitcoin soared almost 1,500% while smaller counterparts such as ethereum and litecoin gained at least 6,000%. Of course, the surges were accompanied by no shortage of pessimists calling a bubble. Here’s our wrap-up of the best and worst performers in various asset classes over the past year: Equities Bulls in Ukraine had a good year after the Inter...
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