Global stocks fall, led by Russian markets, as ‘full-scale attack’ on Ukraine begins

By Michael Grothaus

In the early hours of Thursday, Russian forces launched a “full-scale attack” on Ukraine, according to the country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. As of the time of this writing, Russian military vehicles have just entered the capital of Kyiv, reports Bloomberg.

Outside of the country, reaction from stock markets has been swift, with global indexes falling in sync with the attack. Major indexes in the United States are all down pre-market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down over 1.3% and the Nasdaq down 2.6%. Western European markets have been hit harder, with Germany’s DAX down almost 5% and the U.K.’s FTSE down over 2.8%.

But by far, the biggest market selloffs have occurred in Eastern European countries and Russia itself. Hungary’s BUX was down over 10%, but even that is relatively tame considering how badly hit Russia’s markets are this morning. The country’s RTS is down over 36% and the MOEX Russia Index is down over 33%, at the time of this writing. Individual Russian stocks are also being hit hard. The Sberbank of Russia (SBRCY) has seen its shares plummet over 13%.

The reason Russia’s markets are down so much more than other global markets is likely due to the amount and severity of economic sanctions global powers have already imposed on Russia, which are only likely to increase. As The New York Times reports, President Biden plans to announce “severe sanctions” against Russia today due to its incursion into Ukraine. Other countries have pledged to follow suit.

And traditional markets aren’t the only ones down today. The cryptocurrency market is also getting hammered. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin was down almost 10%, Ether was down over 13%, while meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are down over 17% and 20%, respectively.

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