2013 was a year full of IPOs, governmental disasters, taper madness, market highs and more (seriously, how many new market highs can one year have?).
The Yahoo Finance staff reminisced about the past 12 months, recounting their favorite financial news stories.
Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act was a topic of intense scrutiny and debate this year. From a faulty website to increased healthcare costs, the nation's healthcare law has been riddled with controversy all year long.
Will they or won’t they? That was the question asked before nearly every FOMC meeting this year. After 12 months of drama, outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced in December that the central bank would begin to taper its bond-buying program by $10 billion a month…and the markets didn’t even blink.
Our friends in Washington certainly stirred the pot this year. We began 2013 with a little fiscal cliff drama and ended the year with a debt-ceiling crisis and a 16-day government shutdown.
The NASDAQ is at a 13-year high; The Dow just hit its 50th record high for the year with the S&P 500 right behind it. Can markets keep going like this? Are we in a bubble? Have we finally put 2008 recession jitters behind us?
Count your money while reminiscing over these record-breaking stories:
2013 will be known as the year where one IT guy changed the way personal security is perceived in America and around the world. This summer, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA had been spying on American citizens, businesses, and political leaders around the world and then went into hiding, eventually finding solace in Russia. Snowden has said he has a lot more up his sleeve, so expect this to be a big story in 2014 as well.
Whether you believe in global warming or not, there’s no denying that 2013 was a year of extreme weather. We began the year by rebuilding and recovering from the devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to the East Coast. From tornados in Oklahoma to the Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, this has certainly been a year of extreme weather.
Gold bugs beware! While we couldn’t get enough of gold last year, this year we turned our backs on the yellow metal. Whether it was a boost of confidence in the greenback dollar, the popularization of bitcoin or something else entirely, gold is on track to end the year at a loss for the first time in 13 years.
