Editor's letter: The flips and flops of 2021

Happy new year

Last year, as previously unloved sectors such as oil and gas saw a reversal in fortunes, the beleaguered FTSE 100 index achieved a solid double-digit return of 18.4%, falling just a couple of percentage points behind the MSCI World.

And while the FTSE Small Cap index performed better still, with a total return of 23% for the year despite the underperformance of healthcare and tech, the FTSE AIM had a different year altogether. Having outperformed the FTSE 100 by a whopping 30 percentage points in 2020, the FTSE AIM 100 and AIM All-Share were left trailing in the dust last year, falling by 3.5% and 5% respectively. This seems at odds with the volume of companies coming to market, with London witnessing a 14-year high in its number of IPOs at 121, raising total funds of £16.3bn, according to data from EY. 2021 also...