We Now Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled 20%-40% Market Crash For This Important Message
The Russia/Ukraine conflict may not tank markets as quickly as some thought. Here are the factors I believe market outlook hinges on heading into Q2 2022.
Stock futures look unsure of which direction they want to head on Tuesday morning, indicating that a lot of the Russia/Ukraine invasion narrative may have been priced in along the way over the last 2 weeks.
Now, it looks as though the market is less worried about Donbas (there were a slew of media reports yesterday reminding the world that Russian troops have already been in Donbas since 2014) and more worried about what Putin’s next move is going to be: does he want to take the rest of Ukraine, or not?
On Tuesday morning, the company line coming out of the Kremlin seemed to be that Putin may not want to take the rest of Ukraine. Reporting by FT’s Moscow Bureau Chief, Max Seddon, said that Putin denies "speculation that Russia wants to restore the Russian empire" and says that Russia supports the sovereignty of its neighbors – Ukraine was an exception because of "external influence".
Keep in mind, this is from the same government mouthpiece that said, just hours ago, that they wouldn’t recognize the separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine, before then ordering troops there.
The mess at the Russia/Ukraine border adds another layer of confusion to an already-confused Central Bank in the U.S.
This, in turn, muddies the outlook for where the U.S. market could be heading over the next quarter or two. Allow me to explain…