Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1437471
Name Current Change %Change Open High Low Prev. Value Close US MARKETS NASDAQ 15,686.92 461.77 3.03 15510.91 15720.09 15507.66 15225.15 EUROPEAN MARKETS FTSE 7,368.98 29.08 0.40 7339.90 7378.92 7339.68 7339.90 CAC 7,091.91 26.52 0.38 7064.12 7104.06 7062.09 7065.39 DAX 15,802.94 -11.00 -0.07 15781.05 15834.04 15763.73 15813.94 ASIAN MARKETS SGX NIFTY 17,512.00 301.00 1.75 17214.50 17514.50 17205.50 17211.00 225 NIKKEI 225 28,860.62 405.02 1.42 28792.89 28897.44 28621.47 28455.60 STRAITS TIMES 3,131.29 -3.37 -0.11 3138.20 3140.75 3124.31 3134.66 HANG SENG 23,996.87 13.21 0.06 24090.02 24097.98 23907.30 23983.66 TAIWAN WGHTD 17,832.42 35.50 0.20 17845.06 17988.88 17832.42 17796.92 KOSPI 3,001.80 10.08 0.34 3017.93 3036.13 2995.34 2991.72 SET COMPOSITE 1,621.01 11.73 0.73 1617.09 1621.02 1610.30 1609.28 JAKARTA COMP 6,603.80 1.23 0.02 6618.76 6632.94 6584.97 6602.57 SHANGHAI COMP 3,637.57 42.48 1.18 3602.82 3637.72 3591.99 3595.09 16.12.2021 7 INTERNATIONAL MARKETS International Markets Global Indices Trading Date: 15 December 2021 Three stocks to keep an eye on in 2022 THE first stock is CME Group (CME), which is a leading de- rivatives exchange provider. It focuses on running exchanges for futures and options, focusing on a wide variety of asset classes, including interest rates, equities and foreign exchange. ere are several trends that are really benefiting CME at the moment, one of which is that derivatives trading is be- coming a lot more globalised, and that's really opening up the size of the addressable market. e other is that there's a lot more automated trading, and that includes high-fre- quency trading, and that means that more volumes are go- ing through. But mainly, looking forward, if we do get a rise in interest rates, which is expected to happen very soon, then you would expect to see a big pickup in the trading of interest rate deriv- atives and that should be good news for CME Group. Stock number two is Infineon (IFNNY), which is a German company. It's a leading manufacturer of semiconductors with a particular focus on the automotive industry. And it has a very strong position in what's called power semicon- ductors, and these are really important for electric vehicles but also in renewable energy and also battery storage sys- tems. And these are all very big growth areas, and we expect them all to do very well for Infineon going forward. ey have suffered from their exposure to the supply chain issues experienced by car makers. But actually you could say that to some extent it is benefiting some of these manufac- turers because there's a demand issue really rather than a supply issue. So, what's happening is that prices have been pushed up, and that means that companies like Infineon have been fully booked out for the next few months of the amount of product that they are able to produce. But going forward, we do expect there to be a doubling of the total market size of semiconductors between 2020 and 2030, and that should provide a very good opportunity for companies like Infineon. e third stock is more of a stocking filler. It's a compa- ny that we'd be very happy to hold for the longer term. e company is called UnitedHealth Group (UNH), and it's one of the biggest, most diverse healthcare companies in US. ere are two main parts to the business. e larger part is a big healthcare insurance business. And then, the other part, which is still worth about 45% of revenue, is a data analysis business called Optum, and Op- tum is the bit that really interests us because it really analy- ses all the patients who are going through the insurance side of the business. So, it looks at the issues that they're having, it looks at the treatments they're being prescribed, it looks at how much they cost, and it looks at how effective they are. Optum is able to analyse those pathways, and for future patients, it's able to work out what is going to be the cheapest but also the most effective pathway. at's going to help to bring down costs across the whole of the American healthcare industry, and we think that is something that is really needed going forward. e UK's Killik & Co.'s Associate Investment Director, Rachel Winter, lists three stocks she feels investors should strongly consider next year