If 2020 was the year when the poor were hammered while investors made out like bandits, 2021 will see the tables turned. We may see a thriving economy even as Wall Street languishes.

The ASX rose as much as 0.6% before falling flat on Friday. BHP led gains for the miners while Afterpay also hit a new record. The market lost 0.6% for the week.

The fortunes of Australia’s struggling department store duo Myer and David Jones may be set to rebound in the new year after an apparent recovery in sales over Christmas.

Rupert Murdoch took issue with the silencing of debate on social media, saying censorship had hobbled discourse with “awful woke orthodoxy”.

The private equity firm has found that Apollo’s chief executive and chairman, Leon Black, had paid $US150 million ($195 million) to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.