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* Crude oil down 37 pct in 2015, seen hitting $20
* Commodity currencies among year's worst performers
* Most major asset classes weaken in 2015
By David Gaffen
NEW YORK, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Stock and bond markets in major economies were set to close 2015 with a mixed performance, while oil prices and emerging markets cemented big losses during a year that provided few safe places for investors.
While equity markets in Japan and Western Europe gained strongly amid ongoing ultra-easy monetary policy, concerns about global growth and a robust U.S. dollar crushed petroleum prices and took down emerging markets, copper and other metals.
Fixed-income also had a middling performance, as riskier high-yield securities fell due to exposure to weakened energy credits. Short-dated Treasury yields rose, cutting into returns for those bonds.
The MSCI All-World Index .MIWD00000PUS was down 0.3 percent, on track to close the year with a loss of about 4 percent.
For the Wall Street's most widely followed average, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, it was down to the last day of trading to determine whether the year would end negative or not. The benchmark index was down 0.6 percent for the day, which would make 2015 a down year in terms of price, though dividends mean it will post a positive total return for a seventh straight year.
"As we close out of the year, it's been a tale of two tapes, with narrow leadership holding up the major indices, while the vast majority of the market continues to underperform," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 67.73 points, or 0.38 percent, to 17,536.14, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 6.96 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,056.4 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 20.71 points, or 0.41 percent, to 5,045.14.
While U.S. stocks .SPX are just off record highs, they rose only 0.2 percent this year but are tipped for growth next year of around 6 percent. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N140005
Brent crude LCOc1 gained 0.4 percent to $36.60 on Thursday, after a 3.5 percent drop in the previous session. It's set for a slump of nearly 37 percent for 2015, having shed 48 percent in the previous year, as a global supply glut shows no sign of abating. U.S. crude, meanwhile, is off 29 percent in 2015, after falling 47 percent in 2014. O/R
Some analysts like Goldman Sachs (N:GS) say prices as low as $20 per barrel might be necessary to push enough production out of business and allow the market to rebalance.
In Europe, where the ECB is pumping more than a trillion euros into the economy, stocks were down 0.2 percent on Thursday but on track for a 7 percent gain on the year.
With China's slowdown and sliding oil prices troubling emerging markets, and global bonds on edge as the United States experiments with its first rate-hiking cycle in nearly a decade, these shares are seen as among the best bets for investors.
In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index, which was closed on Thursday, finished the year up around 9 percent .N225 . Other Asian markets have been hit by worries about China, the world's second largest economy, and oil prices near 11-year lows.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up slightly on Thursday but has shed nearly 12 percent this year. Broader emerging market stocks .MSCIEF are down 17 percent in 2015.
The outperformance in European and Japanese equities has a lot to do with a strengthening dollar, which has weakened their currencies over the last few years and made their exporters more competitive.
The euro EUR= was down 0.1 percent on Thursday, on track for a fall of nearly 10 percent against the dollar in 2015.
Against a basket of major currencies in 2016 .DXY , the greenback has gained 9 percent, with a rebounding jobs market convincing the Federal Reserve to 'lift off' on interest rates earlier this month. It was broadly flat on Thursday.
Currency strategists predict the dollar will add another 4 percent next year. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N13R25E
The dollar hit a more than one-year high against Russia's rouble RUB= on Thursday, and its highest in at least 13 years against the Norwegian crown NOK= the previous day.
Among widely-trade currencies, the five worst performers this year have included the Brazilian real BRL= , with losses of around 30 percent versus the dollar, the South African rand ZAR= , Turkish lira TRY= and the ruble.
In debt markets, German bonds ended their most volatile year since 2011 with yields higher than they were at the end of 2014, showing the limitations of ultra-easy monetary policy with global disinflationary forces at work.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield US10YT=RR was at 2.28 percent; it rose modestly in 2015 from 2.17 percent at the beginning of the year.
Much of the year's rise in yields was in short-dated securities on expectations of higher rates from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The two-year yield US2YT=RR rose to 1.05 percent, compared with 0.68 percent at the beginning of the year.
Ten-year yields DE10YT=TWEB closed at 0.63 percent on Wednesday, up 9 bps on the year and far from record lows of 0.05 percent touched in mid-April.
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http://link.reuters.com/syf98v 2015 asset performance
http://tmsnrt.rs/1Ml1UzG Emerging market currencies in 2015
http://link.reuters.com/jus35t Bonds in 2015
http://link.reuters.com/var26w
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