The final tallies are in, and at this point, the winners and losers of 2013 probably won't surprise you.
The Nikkei 225 and the S&P 500 stock indices top the list of best-performing major asset classes of 2013, while gold and U.S. Treasuries are the worst among the losers.
The dollar-yen exchange rate and the Euro Stoxx 50 index both had a spectacular year as well, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the euro, and the British pound sterling all eked out gains against the dollar, and emerging-market assets (proxied by MSCI's EM stock index, JPMorgan's Emerging Market Bond Index, and the Shanghai Composite) all ended the year lower than where they started.
The chart below compares returns:
Business Insider/Matthew Boesler (data from Bloomberg)