U.S. stocks ended the final trading session of 2016 with small losses, but logged solid annual gains. The S&P 500 declined 0.5% to end at 2,238.85, according to preliminary figures, but finished with a yearly gain of more than 9.5%.

January can tell you a lot about what the market might do to your portfolio in 2017, if you pay attention to the right patterns. Will 2017 bring investors good returns? History indicates that’s likely, but as with all things related to the stock market, nothing is a certainty.

The gap-up open was quickly sold, as market players seem more interested in cleaning out their portfolios so they can start fresh in 2017, rather than starting new positions. Breadth is running about 2,600 to 3,800 negative, and we only have about 100 stocks hitting new 12-month highs today.There is weak action in the big-cap FANG names, and there isn’t much going on as far as themes.

But for Mediterranean restaurant chain Zoe’s Kitchen , 2016 was a year to forget, with the stock falling 50% from its high of about $40 in April to $20 and change in October — an all-time low. Though it has recovered a bit since then, the stock is down around 13% year to date.

Hong Kong shares rose around 1 percent on Friday, but the main indexes ended 2016 near where they started after a volatile 12 months, punctuated by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s triumph in the U.S. presidential election. On the last trading session of the year, the Hang Seng index added 1.0 percent, to 22,000.56 points, while the Hong Kong China Enterprises Index gained 0.9 percent, to 9,394.87.

Chinese stocks rose slightly on Friday, the last trading day of 2016, but the blue-chip index ended the year more than 11 percent lower despite signs of resilience in the world’s second-largest economy. The Chinese market did find its footing after a deep plunge early in 2016.

European stocks are expected to open with little change from Thursday’s close in the final session of the year. European stocks are expected to open mixed Friday as investors tidy-up positions on the final trading day of the year.

While generally speculative, an investment in gold has rarely appeared so reasonable and has become increasingly so recently. Several factors are behind a brighter sheen on the precious metal, including the stock market rally, the threat of trade wars, the hike in interest rates and gold’s own depressed price.

European stocks are set to open lower Thursday in one of the final trading sessions of the year following a mixed session for major markets in Asia. Britain’s FTSE 100 index is called around 0.33% lower at the start of trading, according to financial bookmakers IG, following its record close of 7,106.08 on Tuesday.

Futures for U.S. markets were higher late Wednesday, indicating investors may have another shot at pushing the Dow Jones Industrials index over 20,000 before the end of the week, though a second bond sale Thursday may again tap pocketbooks. The Dow and Nasdaq added 0.03% at 9:16 p.m. EST while the S&P 500 gained 0.06%.

Wednesday was a downbeat day for the stock market, as major market benchmarks fell sharply in yet another disappointing failure for the Dow Jones Industrials to hit the 20,000 mark. The Dow was off more than 100 points, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted even steeper percentage declines as the end of the year approached.

Annually at this time of year, we are inundated with financial advice columns suggesting that investors re-balance their investment portfolios. Conventional wisdom states that it is prudent to sell a portion of an asset class that has recently outperformed to buy the asset class that has recently under-performed in order to bring the long-term target asset allocation back into balance.

There are now 1,961 U.S.-listed exchange traded products, which include both exchange traded funds and exchange traded notes, with a little over $2.5 trillion in assets under management. The most popular new ETF options available to investors of 2016 include some that track leveraged high-yield strategies, a dynamically hedged international equity position, another that screens companies for gender equality in the evolving age and a forward momentum investment style.

Nader Naeimi, who made the right bet buying the dollar against the yen before the U.S. election, is selling the greenback against the currencies of Australia, Brazil, Russia and Turkey. “It seems like long dollars is becoming a no brainer,” said Naeimi, who has two decades of investment experience and heads a dynamic investment fund at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney.