The key indices of the US stock market - Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 - closed Thursday with another decline, but this time a small one. Yesterday was very fruitful in terms of various news and reports. In the first place in terms of importance, of course, is the American inflation, which continued to accelerate, as expected by all market participants without exception. In February, the consumer price index rose to 7.9%, which also did not come as a surprise. Probably because traders and investors are already used to the fact that inflation is rising every month, and there was no particular reaction to this report. The stock market has shown very restrained dynamics and continues to be near its local lows.
Separately, I would like to state that the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and Russia Dmitry Kuleba and Sergey Lavrov did not bring any results. Therefore, no mutual understanding was reached between the Ukrainian and Russian sides on any of the key disagreements. Therefore, now there is no chance that this geopolitical conflict will be resolved, and the firing will be stopped in the near future. More and more international agencies, mass media, political scientists, and experts are inclined to believe that this will be the same protracted conflict as in the Donbas. However, this time we are talking about a conflict on the territory of an entire country.
At the same time, the International Monetary Fund made a statement that default in the Russian Federation is no longer an "unlikely scenario." Recall that the largest banks and agencies declare a default in Russia, which may happen by mid-April. However, default is probably not the worst thing for the Russian economy right now. After all, default means the inability to service their debts and repay them. Given that the reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation are blocked (that is confiscated), it is unlikely that the Russian Federation considers it necessary to pay international debts to those countries and those companies that imposed sanctions against it.
Almost every day we receive new data on sanctions and the withdrawal of a company from the Russian market. Yesterday, it became known that JPMorgan, one of the largest banks in the world, is ceasing its activities in Russia. It also became known that the States can completely block any trade operations with Russia or impose a tax on imports from Russia. In addition, the Russian Federation is proposed to be excluded from the WTO. Thus, an active sanctions war is continuing now, in which Russia has practically nothing to answer the Western countries with. Oil and gas continue to rise in price (in the medium term), but more and more often Western politicians mention words such as "oil embargo".
