Morning Brew February 23 2022

Good Morning,

Worries on the Ukraine conflict sparked risk off sentiment yesterday and trading was extremely volatile yesterday, initially equities sold off massively but could recover a good deal, at the end of the day, US Indexes closed app 1% below Friday. The S&P 500 ended down more than 10% from the January 3 high and is formally in correction.. Dax has settled down at around 14700 overnight, the USD Index at 96 and US 10 year yields recovered from 1.85 to 1.96.

EURUSD is trading at 1..1320 and GBPUSD at 1.3590, Gold at 1897 and Silver at 24.15. Bitcoin gains to 38k Oil made another 7 year high.

The US, the EU, UK as well as Japan issued sanctions against  Russia, mainly targeting oligarchs and Russian businesses, Germany puts the certification for Nordstream 2 on hold.

Russian equities fell severely and we will be placing trading restrictions on a number of instruments to avoid issues.

Today the focus will be on Ukraine on the one hand but also on the impact of the sanctions on businesses. European Banks will be affected at least, more details are to be expected soon.

Peter Garnry wrote a good on equities in the current surroundings:

Russia is Germany’s Achilles heel

German equities are the weak spot in Europe which a higher negative sensitivity to the ongoing energy crisis and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. German equities are only 7% above their pre-pandemic level highlighting that something is structurally wrong and Germany has the wrong growth model. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that escalated to a new level yesterday will continue to put upward pressure on commodities, and thus also inflation, and especially energy markets making the commodity sector a must to have exposure to for equity investors. We also highlight our defence theme basket which is enjoying strong relative performance this year as military budgets could see an increase in the coming years.

Lenovo`s profit jumped 62% to an all-time high of $640 million, Home Depot falls significantly as costs weigh on Q4 earnings.

Expiries
Physically Settled Futures:

CGBH2 will expire 24^th February at 16:00 GMT

Expiring CFDs:

SUGARNYMAR22 will expire 24^th February at 16:00 GMT

Key Events this Week:

Wednesday: EU HICP

Thursday: US GDP New Home Sales

Friday: German GDP, EU Consumer Confidence, Durable Goods Orders

Earnings:

Wednesday: Rio Tinto, Iberdrola, Stellantis

Thursday: Safran,  Anheuser Bush Inbev, Axa, Deutsche Telekom, Royal Bank oc Canada. Alibaba, Moderna, Newmont Mining

Friday: BASF

Saturday: Berkershire Hathaway.