Russia Worries Mount

By Connor Smith |  Friday, February 18 Continued Worries. U.S. stocks fell on Friday as worries about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine mounted. The S&P 500 index fell 0.7% on the day, declining 1.6% on the week. The large-cap benchmark has fallen five of the past seven trading days and is  off 9.3% from its record close from Jan. 3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced up and down before closing the day down 0.7%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.2%. Friday's trading represented another tough day for high-growth technology stocks, which had soared during the pandemic. Shares of DraftKings and Roku both dropped 22% on disappointing forecasts from management. "There's enough fear that Putin may move on Ukraine right after the Beijing Winter Olympics are over that caution is keeping the dip buyers at bay," writes Louis Navellier, founder of Navellier & Associates. "That the market is closed on Monday for President’s Day is adding to the reluctance to buy stocks." After markets closed, President Joe Biden said for the first time he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision to invade Ukraine. "The fact remains: Russian troops currently have Ukraine surrounded from Belarus to the Black Sea in the south — and along Ukraine’s borders," Biden said on Twitter. "We have reason to believe Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming days." Though he notes the situation in Russia could cause large swings in oil prices, Barron's Avi Salzman writes that oil's eight-week winning streak ended on Friday. In Iran, U.S. and European diplomats appear to have made progress in coming to a new nuclear deal, which would allow Iran to resume oil exports to much of the world in return for assurances that the country would not build nuclear weapons. Iran could add about one million barrels of oil to daily global supplies, a boost of about 1%. That may not seem like much, but relatively small changes at the margins can have large impacts on prices. Without an Iran deal, oil is likely to resume its rise. For U.S. investors more concerned about the Federal Reserve's plans to tackle inflation, The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that officials, including New York Fed President John Williams, are signaling the central bank is leaning against a half-point rate increase. “There’s really no kind of compelling argument that you have to be faster right in the beginning” with rate increases, Mr. Williams told reporters on Friday. “There’s no need to do something ‘extra’ at the beginning of the process of liftoff. We can…steadily move up interest rates and reassess. I don’t feel a need that we’d have to move really fast at the beginning.” Investors will have a long-weekend to process those new rate-making clues. Markets reopen on Tuesday. Review & Preview will also be off Monday, back in your inbox on Tuesday night.   Watch our weekly TV show on Fox Business Saturdays at 10 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. ET; or Sundays at 10 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. ET. This week, an interview with Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and long-term investment strategist at GMO, on why he thinks stocks are in a massive bubble.

 

DJIA: -0.68% to 34,079.18 S&P 500: -0.72% to 4,348.87 Nasdaq: -1.23% to 13,548.07 The Hot Stock: Dollar Tree +5.2% The Biggest Loser: PPL -7.3% Best Sector: Consumer Staples +0.2% Worst Sector: Technology -1.0%