Asian stocks made steady gains on Tuesday the intense market volatility sparked by the war in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions on Russia for invading its neighbor.
The CSI300, KOSPI, SET and TOPIX closed higher by 0.27%, 0.84% and 0.93% and 0.57% respectively, while HSI down marginally by 0.08%.
Russia’s markets remain under pressure after the U.S. and its allies moved to block the Bank of Russia’s access to foreign reserves and cut some lenders off from the SWIFT messaging system for global banking.
President Vladimir Putin announced countersanctions, while officials also introduced some capital controls to try and stem a ruble plunge. There’s a growing risk that Russia’s stocks and bonds could be dumped out of major investment benchmarks as they become increasingly hard to trade.
“We could see a longer off-ramp for inflation here” amid the added pressures to energy prices from the Russian invasion, Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said on Bloomberg Television.
She said a half-point Fed hike in March “is probably off the table” while adding she expects four quarter-point increases in 2022.
Oil edged higher, with traders focused on the possible release of emergency stockpiles to counter fears of disruption to Russian exports. WTI trading at $96.35 per barrel up by 0.66% while Brent on the higher edge trading at $98.73 up by 0.79%.
In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin jumped past $43,000 on speculation that digital tokens could be increasingly used for payments in the wake of the sanctions against Russia.
