What you should know on Wednesday, March 9:
Market sentiment improved modestly earlier in the day. Ukraine confirmed the first humanitarian corridor, which allowed the evacuation of Sumy and Mariupol. So far, the UN has reported that the total number of refugees exceeded two million.
Sentiment improved further after news outlets reported that Ukraine would no longer seek NATO membership, in a nod to Russia. Meanwhile, the next round of peace talks is scheduled for next Thursday in Turkey.
US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have announced sanctions against Russia amid its latest invasion of Ukraine. The former announced that it would ban all crude oil imports from Moscow, including gas and energy, “after consultation with allies.” The Russian energy ban applies to all new purchases. Market participants have already anticipated this move as it has been doing the rounds since Monday.
As for the UK government, it announced that it would phase out the import of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022. The idea is to make a transition to provide enough time for markets and companies to replace Russian imports. Even more, they pointed out that the current dependence on Russian natural gas represents 4% of the supply and that they are already investigating it.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to ban the export of products and raw materials outside the Russian federation until December 31.
The EUR/USD pair peaked at 1.0957 but moved a few pips above 1.0900. GBP/USD ended the day struggling to hold the 1.3100 level. Commodity-linked currencies ended the day lower against the dollar. AUD/USD is trading around 0.7270, while USD/CAD is hovering around 1.2900.
Spot gold soared to $2,070.50 a troy ounce, pulled back sharply afterwards and ended the day around $2,031. Published crude oil prices are little changed at the close, with WTI trading at $123.60 a barrel.
US indices managed to recover some ground and ended Tuesday with modest gains.
Source: Fx Street
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