New York : Shares are opening up wall Street And oil prices are coming back on Thursday as markets took some shocks at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Major indices added to their gains a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he backed modest interest rate hikes at the Fed’s policy meeting in two weeks, bringing relief to investors who feared Will take more aggressive steps to fight inflation. Trading on the Moscow Exchange remained closed and major credit rating agencies downgraded Russia’s credit rating. The S&P 500 was up 0.5% and the Treasury yield rose.
US market Premarket trading was essentially flat, while oil prices continued to climb as Russian forces bombed Ukraine’s second-largest city and besieged two ports.
economic fallout Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Ratings extended the Russian offensive with a cut in Russia’s credit rating. He said the invasion and Western sanctions had damaged Moscow’s ability to repay debt and posed risks to the economy and stability.
On Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded off modest gains and losses hours before the market opened in New York.
In early trade, the FTSE 100 in London and Frankfurt’s DAX each lost 0.6%, while the CAC in Paris declined 0.2%.
The London Stock Exchange said it has suspended trading in shares of 27 companies with links to Russia, including some of the biggest companies in energy and steel such as Lukoil, Gazprom, Sberbank, Rosneft and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works.
In a notice, the exchange said that the suspension reflects the recent financial restrictions and was made “in light of market conditions and to maintain orderly markets”.
Shares of those companies fell with the start of Russia’s invasion last week.
Global stock benchmark provider MSCI said it was removing Russian stocks from a widely tracked index by fund managers, describing the Russian equity market as “uninvestable”.
Trading on the Moscow Exchange remained closed on Thursday, apart from a limited range of trades in the ruble and derivatives and commodities.
In currency markets, the Russian ruble lost 15% and less than 1 percent against the US dollar. It has fallen since Western governments imposed sanctions that curtail Russia’s access to the global financial system.
In Asian trade, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 0.7% to 26,577.27 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.6% to 22,467.34. The Shanghai Composite Index fell less than 0.1% to 3,481.11.
In Seoul, the Kospi was up 1.6% at 2,747.08 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 was up 0.5% at 7,151.40.
India’s Sensex closed 0.3% lower at 55,311.33. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also rose.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose on Wednesday after Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed was ready to raise its key interest rate. He said he favors the traditional increase of 0.25 percentage points instead of the larger increase recommended by some policy makers.
Powell said the impact of Russia’s attack on the US economy is “highly uncertain”.
“The market has responded positively to the comments, a debatable interpretation of Powell’s nuanced comments,” ING Economists said in a report. “Volatility is the key here, and uncertainty. It’s not going to go away anytime soon.”
Share prices have jumped widely as investors try to figure out how the Russian attack will affect supplies of oil, wheat and other commodities and a global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Traders were already uneasy about plans by the Fed and other central banks to fight inflation by rolling back ultra-low interest rates that boost stock markets.
In energy markets, benchmark US crude rose $2.79 to $113.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the price base of international oil, rose $2.64 to $115.57 a barrel in London.
Both gains were lower than Wednesday’s jump of more than $7 a barrel but there were still unusually wide margins for daily change.
Leaders of OPEC and other major oil exporters on Wednesday decided to stick to a plan to gradually increase production. A coalition made up of OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia and non-cartel members led by Russia decided in April to increase production by 400,000 barrels per day.
The United States and the International Energy Agency’s other major oil consumers agreed this week to release 60 million barrels from strategic reserves to boost supplies. But this has little effect on market prices.
The dollar rose to 115.71 yen from Wednesday’s 115.58 yen. The euro declined from $1.1126 to $1.1088.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.
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