US natural gas futures were trading below $4.5/MMBtu at the end of 2022, the lowest in over nine months, amid prospects of lower heating demand on forecasts for much warmer-than-normal temperatures this week and in early January. Also, concerns eased about supply disruptions including wells and pipes freezing due to extreme cold. At the same time, the Freeport LNG export plant in Texas, forced to go offline in June following a fire, again delayed the restart to the second half of January, pending regulatory approval. The benchmark is still up more than 30% in 2022 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the unprecedented economic sanctions have thrown the global energy market into chaos.

US stocks ended a dismal year on a sour note with the Dow closing 70 points down, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, as investors continued to assess the outlook for growth and tighter monetary policy worldwide. The Dow fell 8.8% in 2022, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 plunged 19.5% and 33.3%, respectively, marking Wall Street’s worst annual performance since 2008. Governments and central banks grappled with stubbornly high inflation arising from years of loose monetary policy and the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine. The sharp declines in global equities worldwide wiped out nearly one-fifth of the capitalization of global stocks, preceding largely pessimistic expectations for next year as central banks signaled further aggressive monetary tightening to rein in unstable price growth, ultimately leading to job losses and downward earnings revisions. In December, the Dow lost 4.2%, the S&P 500 lost 5.9%, and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 9%.