Markets are saying Putin will get what he wants

Bloomberg Opinion/John Authers/2-24-2022

“It’s not often a day starts with quite such a jolt. I have many opinions about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The impact on markets is, personally, well down my list of concerns. But it’s my job to cover them, and this can be expected to have a big effect. Within Europe, this is the greatest negative shock to the international order since the end of the Second World War, and it will have profound consequences.”

USAGOLD note: Yet stock markets plummeted, then magically levitated significantly higher …… We referenced this Authers’ column in Friday’s DMR and repost it here for those who may have missed it. In it, we feel he hits closer to the mark than anything we’ve read so far as to how markets are reading the Ukraine invasion. “It might be best to take Thursday’s extraordinary rally as an opportunity to take a few profits and allocate something to cash or gold,” he writes in conclusion. “Some insurance during a situation that is very dangerous seems like a good idea.” In our many years reading Auther’s columns, we do not remember him ever making an outright recommendation to buy gold. Perhaps he senses that something does not add up in all of this. For the stock market, it is double sevens at every roll of the dice.