Equites remained mixed on Thursday as the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia sent prices of commodities particularly oil to record high that is expected to hurt economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic.
The HSI, KOSPI, SET and TOPIX closed marginally in the positive by 0.55%, 1.61%, 0.37% and 1.81% respectively while CSI300 dipped by 0.59%.
U.S. futures are down with Dow Jones, S&P500 and Nasdaq100 dipped by 0.07%, 0.14% and 0.38% respectively.
Commodity markets remained volatile reaching new highs seen in a decade partly factored due to big corporations withdrawal from Russian soil. European natural gas inched to a new record high.
U.S. WTI is trading at $113 par barrel while Brent is at $115.32 par barrel.
Treasuries remained in the negative with U.S. 10-year yield remains below 2%.
MSCI Inc. and FTSE Russell planned to remove Russian equities from its major tracking indexes. Similarly, Moody’s and Fitch sharply cut down credit rating of the country.
Meanwhile, Fed’s chair Jerome Powell reassured markets to cut back on policy support by increasing interest in the upcoming meeting, raising rates for a quarter-point this month.
The Fed chair managed to “appease risk-markets by ruling out a 50 basis-points hike in March, while simultaneously promising inflation vigilance at following meetings,” Citigroup Inc. strategists William O’Donnell and Edward Acton wrote in a note.
