As with most uncertain market and global conditions, gold has risen quite a bit. The derivatives code for gold is usually XAUUSD. Gold is seen as a safe haven and an asset that will often rise in uncertainty. It’s physical use in troublesome times means that people may have intention to buy gold for the physical use in the event money of their country becomes worth less or products become subject to heavy inflation in relation to their currency.
Stock index markets have crumpled, however due to the solid run up, they are about as high as they were mid last year! There could be a lot more downside however we have seen the outer Bollinger band (2.6 deviations) on US30 and GER40, two heavy growth style indices.
Property is often seen as a safe haven or safe asset, given the way the markets currently react and how the government has structured its laws and regulations to support lending and property rules such as tax benefits. It will be interesting to see the effect of property prices in Australia as we see the disruption across the other side of the globe.
We have also seen oil power up, this is due to the requirement of oil in a time of war, but also due to a large contract in relation to a pipeline in Russia (developed by Germany) being put on hold due to Putin’s activity.
Sanctions applied to Russia coming from US are going to starve Russia of some things, however China is it’s largest trading partner, who have not yet stopped trading with them at this stage.
What are your thoughts on why the Ukraine is being invaded? Is the media telling us the whole story, and why now?