Almost all stock market barometers worldwide are deeply negative this year.

As one of the few exceptions, the British index FTSE 100 has held up relatively well.

This is due to the very high weight that shares in the oil, gas and commodity groups have in the London benchmark index.

The stock market values ​​of the energy companies - BP and Shell are the most prominent - have increased by 37 percent since the beginning of the year, other commodity groups by an average of 16 percent.

Philip Pickert

Business correspondent based in London.

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The FTSE 100 has now given up all of its gains.

On Monday, the index fell - depressed due to global growth concerns - by 2.3 percent to 7217 points, which is a good 2 percent less than at the turn of the year.

On Tuesday it went up 0.7 percent again.

However, the recovery could not keep up with that of the Dax, which rose by 1.3 percent.

Including dividend payments, London is still slightly positive.

This puts the FTSE 100 in a much better position than the French CAC 40, the Italian MIB or the German Dax, which have had to cope with losses of 15 percent or more since the beginning of the year.

Smaller values ​​deep in the minus

The fact that the FTSE 100 includes far fewer tech companies than, for example, the New York Stock Exchange also helped this year.

Even if you take into account the roughly 2 percent fall in the pound exchange rate, an investment in London's leading index was still relatively robust in this international crisis year.

The picture is very different for the FTSE 250 index, which tracks the smaller British public companies, which generate half their sales in their home market.

It is almost 19 percent down since the beginning of the year.

It reflects all of the factors in the malaise that is plaguing every economy around the world this year: the stresses of high energy prices and rising costs, worrying inflation dynamics, rising interest rates and a rapidly slowing economy.

The Bank of England has published gloomy forecasts.

In addition to the rise in inflation to just over 10 percent in October, there is a risk of a recession in the autumn quarter when consumers react to the renewed increase in energy bills.

In the next year and the year after that, the economy on the island will only stagnate.

This overall cooling drowns out all the good news that was out there until recently.

For example, the dividends that beat analyst expectations.

All in all, listed British companies are likely to pay out £92 billion to their shareholders this year, the Link fund group has calculated.

“We expect the remainder of this year to beat forecasts as well.

The war in Ukraine is partly to blame as it pushed up oil and metal prices,” said Ian Stokes, Link's managing director.

The energy and raw materials groups are responsible for 80 percent of the upwardly revised expectations.

Shell reported record profits of $9 billion for the first quarter of 2022 - the most in any quarter.

BP was slightly below at over $6 billion.

Although both companies have also recorded massive book losses due to the announced farewell to Russia investments, the current profits from the oil and gas business impressed the stock marketers more.

Shell shares have gained 35 percent since the beginning of the year, and BP has gained a good 19 percent.

Energy companies make up over 11 percent of the FTSE 100.

Commodities and mining companies such as Anglo American and Glencore still have a weight of almost 7 percent after BHP left the London Stock Exchange.

Global corporations have good prospects

Shares in pharmaceutical and healthcare companies (14 percent), utilities (a good 10 percent), food manufacturers (5 percent) and banks (almost 5 percent plus) have developed well this year.

The pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-Smith-Kline is almost 10 percent up, Astra-Zeneca 20 percent.

But that's about it for winners in the FTSE 100. All other sectors are in the red, be it construction, financial services, insurance or technology stocks.

The worst hit was the chemical industry (down 18 percent) and the retail and supermarket groups, where the rise in costs is painfully depressing profits.

The shares of the retail giants have lost more than 28 percent since the beginning of the year.

Clothing retailers, supermarket chains and others are already feeling the reluctance to consume among citizens whose real incomes are being squeezed by inflation.

"We are cautious about domestic stock values," says an analysis by Goldman Sachs. However, the investment bank remains rather optimistic about the globally oriented companies in the FTSE 100.

She expects a price increase to 8100 points in twelve months.