Week of March 25, 2022 Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“Accepting losses is the most single important device to ensure safety of capital” — Gerald Loeb
1. Biden to Sanction Hundreds of Russian Lawmakers — President Biden intends to announce the sanctions on more than 300 members of the Russian State Duma during his trip to Europe, where he will meet with allies from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to formulate their next steps, according to U.S. officials and internal documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Duma, while far less powerful than the Russian president, has acquired expanded constitutional responsibilities in recent years, particularly regarding the country’s economic affairs. It also serves as a link between various segments of the population and the government, relaying grievances and concerns upward, and distributing state assistance to the public.
2. Russian Stock Market to Partially Reopen — the challenge for Moscow is that the resumption of trading could simply send Russian stocks back into free fall. On Feb. 24, the day when President Vladimir Putin began the assault on Ukraine, the main Russian stock index tumbled 33%. While the index regained a fraction of those losses on Feb. 25—its last day of trading—that was before Western sanctions hammered the ruble and sent the country into an economic crisis.
To limit the fallout, Moscow has turned to some heavy-handed policies. It blocked foreign investors from dumping local stocks—a move that some market participants saw as retaliation for a Western freeze on Russian central bank assets since a big chunk of the Russian market is owned by foreigners. The Russian government ordered its main sovereign-wealth fund to buy billions of dollars worth of shares.
3. Biden Calls for Russia to Be Expelled From G-20 — President Biden said Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies and pledged the U.S. would take in up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine as he met Thursday with world leaders to discuss new sanctions and humanitarian aid in response to Moscow’s invasion. With Russian forces facing unexpectedly strong and lethal opposition from Ukrainian forces, Western leaders say they are worried Mr. Putin might resort to using weapons of mass destruction. NATO officials are grappling with the question of what actions by Russia would count as red lines that could prompt more-direct involvement by the alliance. Officials said Russia’s potential use of chemical weapons was part of the discussion among NATO leaders.
4. U.S. to Boost Gas Deliveries to Europe Amid Scramble for New Supplies — The U.S. is ramping up shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe this year as the continent mounts a world-wide hunt for new supplies to phase out its reliance on Russian energy after the invasion of Ukraine. The globe-spanning effort to wean Europe off Russian energy supplies was at the center of President Biden’s summit with European Union leaders this week in Brussels. The U.S. aims to ship 50 billion cubic meters of LNG to Europe annually through at least 2030, officials said Friday, making up for about a third of the gas the EU receives from Russia. The EU imported a record 22 billion cubic meters of LNG from the U.S. last year. Officials across the continent are racing to sign new contracts with producers in the Middle East and Africa before next winter; EU leaders on Friday also decided to band together when negotiating supply agreements, using the bloc’s collective economic weight to get lower prices.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
