Headlines:
- What to expect from the ECB later today?
- Lavrov: Ukraine seems to want to have meetings for the sake of meetings
- Russia's Lavrov: We reminded Ukraine that Russia has presented its proposals
- Kuleba: We cannot stop the war if the country that started it has no desire to do so
- Ukraine's Kuleba: Meeting with Lavrov was both easy and difficult
- Russia bans export of tech, auto, agricultural, electrical equipment until end of 2022
- UK government slaps sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs in estimated £15 billion hit
- UAE says remains committed to OPEC+ alliance, will not act on its own
Markets:
- NZD leads, EUR lags on the day
- European equities lower; S&P 500 futures down 1.0%
- US 10-year yields up 0.7 bps to 1.955%
- Gold up 0.5% to $2,000.60
- WTI up 4.4% to $113.49
- Bitcoin down 6.5% to $39,140
After a rather optimistic showing yesterday, markets are looking less assured today.
Equities slipped early on before a brief and light bounce and then extending losses after the meeting between Russia and Ukraine foreign ministers failed to produce anything substantial.
European indices were down a little over 1% initially but have deepened the declines with the DAX down over 3% and CAC 40 down by 2.8% on the day currently. S&P 500 futures also fell by 1% with Nasdaq futures down 1.4%.
But the dour mood isn't quite catching on elsewhere, with Treasuries relatively muted on the day. That perhaps is feeding to some calm in major currencies as well with little change in general observed.
The aussie and kiwi are keeping a touch higher but nothing really to shout about, with AUD/USD holding around 0.7320-30 levels and NZD/USD around 0.6840-50 levels throughout the session.
The euro remains a bit of a laggard as it backs off the highs yesterday with the ECB in focus later. EUR/USD fell from 1.1060 to 1.1026 before bouncing back a little to 1.1040-50 levels at the moment.
We're caught in some kind of war narrative but it's hard to really tell what exactly that is as markets appear to be as fickle-minded as ever.
Looking at commodities, gold is also seeing a decent bounce back to around $2,000 and oil is also getting a bit of a light reprieve after the plunge yesterday with WTI crude up over 4% to above $113.
