European stock markets continued to decline on Wednesday as investors turned their attention to new talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, hoping for substantial progress in reaching a ceasefire agreement.
Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had hinted that the talks were on the air, saying “the Ukrainian delegation has again found some reasons to postpone the talks.”
Meanwhile, Russian military operations continue for a seventh day, with Kyiv and the country’s largest cities in the east being the target of continuous bombardment. Russia’s advance on Kyiv has not made much progress in the past three days, while the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol remain in Ukrainian hands, according to British intelligence.
In a new video released, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assures the Ukrainian people and the international community that “the lines of defense are resilient” to the Russian attack. “We have nothing to lose but our freedom,” Zelensky said.
The The United Nations condemned yesterday “in the strongest terms” Russia’s attack on Ukraine in a historic vote at a time when European and US companies with global operations are leaving Russia and the ruble is falling to new all-time lows following the downgrade of the country to junk by Fitch and Moody’s.
On the board, the pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.4% to 444.46 points.
The German DAX index fell 0.4% to 13,941.34 points, the French CAC 40 gained 0.3% to 6,515.78 points, while the British FTSE 100 fell 1.1% to 7,345.81 points.
In the region, the Italian FTSE MIB is down 0.4%, while the Spanish IBEX 35 is down 2.2%.
Meanwhile, investors are trying to assess the impact of the evolving geopolitical crisis, the biggest in recent decades, on the course of monetary policy in Europe and the US in the coming months. Analysts now believe that central banks on both sides of the Atlantic will be more cautious in tightening their policies so as not to derail their economies amid the growing risks of war in Ukraine on global development.
At the end of the day, the composite PMI for the services and manufacturing sector recovered to 55.5 points in February after a 11-month low in January at 52.3 points. The latest measurement of the index is the strongest since last September.
Source: Capital
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