With the truly horrific Putin’s war continuing to destroy Ukraine and kill hundreds of civilians, soldiers on both sides and sending Russia’s world status back to the Stalin era, it is difficult to think objectively about matters of as little consequence as the value of electronic vouchers for money.
But obviously, we must.
The general state of global equity markets this week could be described as ‘stabilised’. Markets particpants in both the equity and fixed income markets are now able to make some judgements about the likely impact that Putin’s war will have on world order, although any such assessments will be assuming the war does not escalate outside Ukraine, either to NATO member counries like the Baltic states and Poland, or to other former Soviet Union outposts like Serbia and Moldova.
My personal asssessment of the economic consequences are that the reduction of food, energy and other primary goods coming to the market, plus the potential shock of a major Covid 19 outbreak in China (which will reduce suplies of manufactured goods) will together make the problem that triggered the end of the long bull market in November 2021, that being a fear of runaway inflation, that much worse.
