Global stock indexes – including the Nasdaq 100 – are facing the heat as tensions continue to grip eastern Europe since war broke out between Russia and Ukraine on February 24, and recent peace talks having been unsuccessful.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday made a formal request for his besieged nation to join the EU immediately under what he described as a “new special procedure”.
Russia’s banking system is in crisis, especially with the weakening of its national currency, with the rouble dropping nearly 30 per cent against the US dollar this week.
This pressured Russia’s central bank to immediately raise interest rates to 20 per cent.
These are some of the repercussions from the economic sanctions after some Russia banks were banned from the SWIFT international payment system.
Although geopolitical issues have sent stock markets wobbling, American investor Warren Buffett last week warned against a rush to hold gold or cryptocurrencies during the outbreak of war.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s Volatility Index – VIX – which is based on the S&P 500 index options, is a popular measure of the stock market’s expectations of volatility.
Also known as the “fear index”, VIX is being traded between 28 and 34 points, indicating that the market is trading in an uncertain environment.
The ongoing Russian military assault on Ukraine will weigh heavily on some US tech companies’ stock prices such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Tesla.
Investors should therefore sell the Nasdaq 100 stock index in the range of 14,600 to 17,500 by setting a take-profit function at 13,770 and stop-loss at 15,000.
