Global stocks close out a blockbuster 2020 on a slightly lower footing, with COVID-19 and an end to Brexit in focus

Global stocks close out a blockbuster 2020 on a slightly lower footing, with COVID-19 and an end to Brexit in focus

New York Stock Exchange building decorated for Christmas at the Financial District

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Global shares ease, but set to post record-breaking year, dominated by coronavirus, market turbulence and political uncertainty.

US deal on stimulus and Brexit helped foster some risk appetite in holiday-thinned trade, in which a number of major markets remained closed.

"The central focus for markets heading into 2021 is how economies will be able to recover from the pandemic by rolling-out vaccines and relaxing restrictions," CityIndex strategist Joshua Warner said.

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Global shares headed lower in holiday-thinned trading on Thursday, bringing an end to a tumultuous year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic that has driven stock markets to record highs and brought a return to the kind of volatility seen a decade earlier in the financial crisis.

The turbulence that upended financial markets in the early stages of the pandemic has subsided. The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines around the world has assuaged a lot of the concern about the economic outlook in 2021, although surging caseloads in the US and across Europe in particular, as well as a more contagious new variant of the virus have dented some enthusiasm in the shorter term. 

Much of the