After breaking out of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, the markets have shuddered and then swung wildly.
The current situation threatens to push inflation, squeezing the global economy even more.
Stocks fell initially on Thursday. The prices have also surged for wheat, oil and other commodities.
This comes as the world is worried that the conflict may disrupt global supplies.
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But as the day progressed, things started to look better.
The S&P 500 nosedived 2.6 per cent on Wall Street at the start of trading. Soon, it recovered the drop and flipped to a gain of 1.5 per cent.
In Europe, the heaviest losses hit stocks. The German DAX also went down 4 per cent.
The conflict also looked to push prices even higher at gasoline pumps and grocery stores around the world.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the prices of oil briefly went above USD 100 per barrel to its highest levels since 2014. But soon it came down and the price of oil in the US settled at USD 92.81.
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For natural gas, the spot price in Europe also jumped over 50 per cent.
The FTSE 100 in London tumbled 3.9 per cent while the Russian indexes plunged by a third or more after stock exchange in Moscow briefly suspended trading on all its markets on Thursday morning.
In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 3.8 per cent, and Asian markets also fell by nearly 2 per cent or more.
(With inputs from agencies)
