Stocks tumbled again Friday and this time bond yields joined in the swoon as worries about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine piled onto Wall Street's already heavy list of concerns about inflation and interest rates.
The S&P 500 lost 1.9% after the White House encouraged all U.S. citizens to leave Ukraine within the next 48 hours, before possible military action by Russia. Similar, knee-jerk swings swept through other markets as investors pulled money out of riskier things like stocks and moved instead toward the safety of bonds and gold. The price of oil rose more than 3%.
Tensions have been in the air for a while about military action by Russia, and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday that the United States did not have clear information that the Russian President ordered an invasion. Sullivan said, “the threat is now immediate enough that prudence demands that it is the time to leave now” for Americans in Ukraine.
As Yahoo!Finance reported, a surge in prices which shot up 7.5% pushed calls for the Federal Reserve to increase interesting rates aggressively to try and curb liquidity in the market.
David Spika, the president of GuideStone Capital Management said, "The Fed realizes they have to start moving...Consumers are getting killed with this inflation. The Fed has to move and has to move quickly if they want to rein this in."
