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US stock futures spent hours jumping between gains and losses during the night.

The main futures indices suggest a gain of 0.7% at the opening bell.

RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

Oil prices rose by more than $ 5 a barrel as Russian forces stepped up attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Oil prices have risen despite an agreement by the United States and other major governments in the International Energy Agency to release 60 million barrels of strategic reserves to stabilize supplies.

US crude jumped $ 5.60 to $ 109.05 a barrel in e-commerce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose $ 7.69 on Tuesday to $ 103.41.

Brent crude, based on the price of international oil, rose from $ 5.86 to $ 110.77 a barrel in London. During the previous session, it rose by $ 7 to $ 104.97.

EXXONMOBIL TO STOP OIL PRODUCTION IN RUSSIA, STOP NEW INVESTMENTS THERE IN WAR WITH UKRAINE

Speaking about the state of the Union, President Biden said he would try to mitigate the impact of higher oil prices on Americans.

“I will use every tool we have to protect American business and consumers,” Biden said.

The war between Russia and Ukraine heightens concerns about global economic growth in the face of plans by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to fight rising inflation by raising interest rates.

Investors are expecting more evidence of possible interest rate hikes when Fed Chairman Jerome Powell speaks to Congress on Wednesday.

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Traders will receive the first of this week’s labor reports. The payroll company ADP published its national employment report for February. Economists are looking for a profit of 388,000 jobs in the private sector, a reversal of the surprising loss of 301,000 jobs in January.

The government will publish the monthly report on jobs for February on Friday.

In Europe, the London FTSE added 0.6%, the German DAX rose 0.2% and the French CAC rose 0.2%.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost 1.7%, Hang Seng in Hong Kong sank by 1.8% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.1%.

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Investors transferred the money to the safe haven of government bonds, raising their market price and reducing the yield or the difference between the current price and the maturity.

Yields on 10-year bonds fell by an unusually high margin to 1.74%.

Bitcoin is trading over $ 43,000.

On the Wall Street S&P 500 fell 1.5% to 4,306.26. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8% to 33,294.95. The Nasdaq index fell 1.6% to 13,532.46.

JPMorgan Chase fell 3.8% and Bank of America fell 3.9%.

More than 70% of shares in the S&P 500 closed lower. Technology, industry and communications companies were among the biggest obstacles to the benchmark index.

Energy reserves have increased. Occidental Petroleum jumped 7%.

The companies cut ties with Russia. Apple said Tuesday it has stopped selling its iPhone and other popular products there. BP and Shell are withdrawing from investments in the Russian oil industry.

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Aircraft maker Boeing has said it has suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed its Kyiv office. A statement said it was also suspending the supply of parts, maintenance and technical support services to Russian airlines.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Here’s a look at the latest big corporate announcements.

Cars

Ford said earlier Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned about the situation in Ukraine”, but did not go so far as to suspend operations in the three Russian cities where the company has plants: St. Petersburg, Elabuga and Naberezhnye Chelny.

The company notes that it has “significantly reduced” its Russian operations in recent years and has “a strong contingent of Ukrainian citizens working for Ford around the world.”

GM has no significant presence there: it sells only about 3,000 vehicles a year through 16 dealerships, according to a spokesman. That’s more than 6 million vehicles sold by the Detroit-based automaker worldwide each year.

Aviation

Boeing said on Tuesday that he would suspend support for Russian airlines.

A spokesman for the company confirmed that it was pausing “parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines” and that it had “suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed our Kyiv office”.

“As the conflict continues, our teams are focused on ensuring the safety of our teammates in the region,” he added.

Airbus followed by Boeing with a similar move on Wednesday. In a statement, the aircraft manufacturer said it had “suspended maintenance services for Russian airlines, as well as the supply of spare parts for the country.”

Great technique

Apple has stopped selling its products in Russia, the company said on Tuesday.

The company said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” about the Russian invasion. In response, it also focused on restricting access to digital services, such as Apple Pay, in Russia and restricting access to Russian state media applications outside the country.

The move comes after receiving “requests from a number of governments and the EU to take further steps with regard to Russian-controlled state media,” tweeted Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of global affairs.

Meta also said it had imposed algorithmic restrictions on Russian state media that should prevent them from appearing prominently in consumer broadcasts.

“Given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service,” the company told CNN Business.

YouTube, which is owned by doogle, said over the weekend that it had blocked Russian state media in Ukraine, including RT. The video platform also said it would “significantly limit the recommendations for these channels”.

Google and YouTube have also said they will no longer allow Russian state media to run ads or generate revenue from their content.

Energy

BP said on Sunday that it plans to leave its 19.75% stake in Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, and their joint ventures, one of Russia’s largest foreign investments.

Equinor will also start leaving its joint ventures in Russia, the Norwegian oil and gas company announced on Monday.

“We are all deeply concerned about the invasion of Ukraine, which is a terrible obstacle to the world,” said Anders Opedale, chief executive.

The company said it had $ 1.2 billion in long-term investments in Russia at the end of 2021. It has been operating in Russia for more than 30 years and has a cooperation agreement with Rosneft.

Exxon promised on Tuesday to leave his latest remaining oil and gas project in Russia and not to invest in new developments in the country.

Sakhalin-1 is “one of the largest single international direct investments in Russia,” according to the project’s website. A subsidiary of Exxon has a 30% stake, while Rosneft also owns a stake.

With the departure of this project, Exxon will end more than a quarter of a century of business presence in Russia.

The UK-based oil company said Monday it would dump its stake in a liquefied natural gas facility, its stake in a field development project in Western Siberia and its interest in a project to explore the Gidan Peninsula in northwestern Siberia.

“We are shocked by the loss of human lives in Ukraine, which we regret as a result of a senseless act of military aggression that threatens European security,” Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement.

The French oil giant has been doing business in Russia for 25 years and recently helped launch a major liquefied natural gas project off the Siberian coast.

Finance

Media and entertainment

A spokesman for the US satellite operator told CNN Business on Tuesday that it was already reconsidering whether to renew the agreement to transport the store, which was due to expire later this year. Russia’s war against Ukraine hastened its decision, according to the spokesman.

The entertainment giant had a number of films that will be released in Russia in the coming months. These include Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” on May 5 and Pixar’s “Lightyear” on June 16.

“We will make future business decisions based on the evolving situation,” said a Disney spokesman.

The film is expected to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year and will be released in most countries by Warner Bros., which, like CNN, is a division of WarnerMedia.

A company spokesman said the decision was made “in light of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine” and that the company hopes for a “quick and peaceful solution to this tragedy”.

Delivery

“As the stability and security of our operations are already directly and indirectly affected by sanctions, Maersk’s new reservations to and from Russia will be suspended, except for food, medical and humanitarian supplies,” the Danish-based company said in a statement. in Tuesday.

“We are deeply concerned about how the crisis continues to escalate in Ukraine,” the company added.

MSC, a Swiss container company, said its own shutdown began on Tuesday and will include “all access areas, including the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and Russia’s Far East”.

– Michelle To, Chris Isidore, Vanessa Jurkevich, Paul P. Murphy, Mark Thompson, Vasco Cotovio, Peter Valdes-Dapena, Frank Palotta, Brian Fung, Oliver Darcy, Jordan Valinski and Chris Liakos contributed to this report.

Coins of Russian rubles are seen in front of the US dollar bill shown in this illustration, made on February 24, 2022. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / Illustration / Files

March 2 – Roll fell to a record low in Moscow of $ 110 a dollar on Wednesday, and the stock market remained closed as Russia’s financial system faltered under Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The roll was 7.3% weaker during the day at 108.60 against the dollar at 09:41 GMT in trade in Moscow, previously reaching 110.0, the lowest level of all time. Since the beginning of the year, it has lost about a third of its value against the dollar.

On Wednesday, it fell 7.1% to trade at 120.50 euros.

For the third day in a row, the ruble was weaker outside Russia, trading at $ 115 per dollar on the EBS e-commerce platform, but still above the lowest level of 120 reached on Monday.

Russia responded by doubling interest rates to 20% and telling companies to convert 80% of their foreign currency earnings into the domestic market as the central bank or the CBR, which is now under Western sanctions, stopped foreign exchange interventions.

JP Morgan said it was preparing for a deep recession in Russia and re-evaluating its regional macro-forecasts.

“The latest CBR measures have completely changed the picture,” said JP Morgan.

“Russia’s large current account surplus could absorb large capital outflows, but with accompanying CBR and SWIFT sanctions, in addition to existing restrictions, Russia’s export earnings are likely to be disrupted and capital outflows likely to be immediate. .

Several Russian banks have been banned by the global financial network SWIFT, which facilitates transfers between banks.

Moscow called its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” it said was not intended to occupy territory but to destroy the military capabilities of its southern neighbor and capture dangerous nationalists.

As households and businesses in Russia rushed to convert the falling ruble into foreign currency, banks raised interest rates on foreign currency deposits.

Russia’s largest lender Sberbank (SBER.MM) offers to pay 4% for deposits up to $ 1,000, while the largest private lender Alfa Bank offers 8% for quarterly dollar deposits. For deposits in rubles Sberbank offers 20% annual yield.

Sberbank said on Wednesday that it was leaving almost all European markets, blaming large cash flows and threats to its staff and assets after the ECB ordered the closure of its European division. Read more

A weak ruble will hit Russia’s standard of living and inflate already high inflation, while Western sanctions are expected to lead to a shortage of basic goods and services such as cars or flights. Read more

Reuters report; Edited by Andrew Havens and Edmund Blair

Our standards: ‘ principles of trust.

MOSCOW, March 2 – Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank (SBER.MM), is leaving almost all European markets, blaming large cash flows and threats to its staff and assets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions.

The move seemed inevitable after the European Central Bank (ECB) ordered the closure of the bank’s European division, warning that it was facing failure due to the accumulation of deposits caused by the invasion, which Moscow calls a “special operation”. Read more

The news came on Wednesday, when state-controlled Sberbank reported record annual profits for 2021.

The bank said it was no longer able to supply liquidity to European subsidiaries following an order from Russia’s central bank, which is seeking to keep foreign currency. But he said the capital and assets were enough to pay off all depositors.

The move underscores the pressure some Russian businesses are facing from the West’s unprecedented steps to isolate Moscow, including sanctions against its central bank and the exclusion of some of its banks from the global SWIFT payment system.

Russia’s central bank governor Elvira Nabiulina said on Wednesday that the country’s economy is facing an extreme situation and she is doing everything possible to ensure that the financial system can cope with any shock. Read more

“In the current situation, Sberbank has decided to leave the European market,” the statement said. “The group’s subsidiaries face unusual cash flows and threats to the safety of its employees and branches.”

Sberbank had European assets worth 13 billion euros ($ 14.4 billion) as of December 31, 2020 and operations in countries including Austria, Croatia, Germany and Hungary, among others.

It says European subsidiaries have experienced a liquidity crisis following the imposition of sanctions, which led to a loss of control over these units in the first quarter of the year.

In November, Sberbank said it planned to finalize the sale of operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia in 2021 in a deal worth about 500m euros.

Slovenian bank NLB (NLBR.LJ) has said it is acquiring Slovenian business.

Sberbank did not provide up-to-date information on other potential transactions.

The exit does not affect Sberbank’s business in Switzerland, which it says continues to operate as usual.

PROFIT JUMP

Sberbank’s net profit for 2021 jumped 64% year-on-year to 1.25 trillion rubles ($ 12.38 billion). The return on equity for the year is 24.2%, and net interest income amounts to 1.8 trillion rubles.

CEO Herman Gref, who has been silent since the crisis unfolded, described the results as “exceptional”, but said the focus was now on “the new challenges facing the Russian economy and financial sector”.

The bank canceled its call to the investor to discuss the results.

The Moscow Stock Exchange stopped trading in shares and tried to prevent the outflow of capital from Russian assets, but Sberbank’s depository receipts in London fell by more than 90% on Wednesday to 1.7 cents.

($ 1 = 100.9700 rubles)

(1 dollar = 0.9018 euros)

Reuters Report Edited by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Potter

Our standards: ‘ principles of trust.

General Motors sells its stake in Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicle startup struggling to produce its first vehicle. GM owned 7.5 million shares, or less than 5 percent of the company, with an initial equity value of $ 75 million. The news was first reported by Detroit Free Press.

The sale took place in the fourth quarter of 2021 after an undisclosed blocking period. A spokesman for GM’s Kane confirmed the sale, while a Lordstown spokesman declined to comment.

The sale of shares signals the beginning of the end of GM’s relationship with Lordstown. The company dates back to GM’s announcement in 2018 that it will close its Lordstown plant. Then-President Donald Trump attacked GM over a decision that led to the carmaker’s decision to sell the plant to an electric truck startup called Workhorse.

Instead, Steve Burns, the founder and former CEO of Workhorse, launched a new company called Lordstown Motors with the electric pickup plan. GM is investing $ 75 million in the company, $ 25 million in cash, and another $ 50 million in “factory assets,” “factory permits,” and factory operating costs.

After buying it, Lordstown Motors has invested about $ 240 million to prepare the plant to build its Endurance electric pickup. It went public through a merger with a special acquisition company or SPAC last summer – and has been facing problem after problem ever since.

The CEO was forced to leave after being caught lying about truck pre-orders. Initial production targets have been reduced. And federal investigators have launched investigations as the company revealed it only has enough money to survive until mid-2022.

With growing financial difficulties, Lordstown announced last September that it would sell the former GM plant to iPhone maker Foxconn for $ 230 million. The company later said it would lend space to Foxconn while looking for contractors to help with Endurance production.

The news comes after Lordstown executives told investors this week they wanted to raise $ 250 million to build 500 Endurance electric trucks. They also questioned the Foxconn deal, revealing that the factory deal was not as far away as expected.

(Bloomberg) – Europe is splitting Sberbank of Russia PJSC’s business in the region after sanctions over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine led to the flight of local deposits.

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Austria-based Sberbank Europe AG will be liquidated through local insolvency proceedings, while all shares in its Croatian and Slovenian subsidiaries will be transferred to other companies in those countries, according to the Single Restructuring Board, which deals with insolvent European creditors. Shares of the parent company, listed in London, fell 90% on Wednesday, while trading in Russian shares remained closed.

Read more: Sberbank fell 90% in London, and the local market is still closed

The United States and the European Union are stepping up measures against Russia by blocking some of the national banks in various parts of the global financial system. As early as last week, the United States said it was sanctioning five of Russia’s largest creditors, including Sberbank and VTB Bank PJSC. While Sberbank in Europe is only part of the lender’s overall business, its closure is an additional blow to Russia.

“I think it’s fair to say that it was a bank run, which was really caused by increased geopolitical risk and sanctions,” Elke Koenig, who runs SRB, told reporters on Wednesday. “This is not insolvency due to negative equity, but insolvency due to lack of liquidity.

On Monday, SRB suspended most payments at three of the bank’s branches after the European Central Bank ruled that Sberbank Europe and its subsidiaries in Croatia and Slovenia were unlikely to be able to pay their debts or other debts.

The story continues

Hrvatska Postanska Banka, the only large state-owned bank in Croatia, will acquire Sberbank’s business in the country, while Nova Ljubljanska Banka will take over operations in Slovenia. Bloomberg announced their offers earlier on Tuesday.

Units in both countries will open on Wednesday “as usual, without interruption to depositors or customers,” SRB said. “They are already part of well-established, stable and stable banking groups.”

The Austrian financial markets regulator has said it has banned Sberbank Europe from continuing to do business. This triggers compensation for customers, giving the country’s guarantee system 10 banking days to pay up to 100,000 euros ($ 111,260) to a depositor.

Covered deposits

Sberbank has decided to withdraw from the European market after facing an accumulation of deposits, Russia’s largest lender said in a statement on its website. The bank failed to provide liquidity to its subsidiaries due to an order from Russia’s central bank, but local assets are enough to pay off all depositors, Sberbank said.

Koenig confirmed this, saying she was “very confident” that Sberbank Europe’s assets would cover its deposits, although it was not yet clear whether they would be enough for all its liabilities. Sberbank Europe previously reported 13.6 billion euros in assets.

The Austrian Deposit Guarantee Fund, backed by the country’s banks, said on Wednesday that it covers about 913m euros out of 1 billion euros in total deposits in the local unit. Sberbank’s Vienna-based division has about 35,000 private depositors, almost exclusively based in Germany but protected by the Austrian system.

Including Sberbank, the seven-year-old SRB has dealt with the bankruptcy of six banks, the last of which is in 2019. In most of these cases, creditors have been terminated under national insolvency law. The last time SRB decided to restructure, as it did with Sberbank’s Slovenian and Croatian branches, was in 2017, when it imposed losses on Banco Popular Espanol SA’s investors and transferred the creditor to larger competitor Banco Santander SA.

The Brussels-based regulator is monitoring lenders with cross-border business and other major banks, leaving the bankruptcy of smaller banks, such as Greensill Bank AG in Germany last year, in the hands of national authorities.

The European Commission states in a separate statement that the Czech authorities have decided to close and liquidate the Sberbank branch in this country, and depositors are entitled to the same legal compensation as in Austria. Regulators in Hungary have also ordered the closure of Sberbank’s Budapest branch.

VTB Bank OJSC, a Russian lender that has come under tougher sanctions than Sberbank, does not accept new customers in its German division, but existing customers who are not subject to sanctions can gain access to their deposits, said German regulator BaFin. -early this week.

“For now, the financial system in Europe is definitely a stable financial system, but of course you never know what the future holds,” Koenig said. “But I would not consider something inevitable on our part. Needless to say, Russian-owned banks are under stress.

(Updates with previous authorization actions in paragraph 12)

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European stocks fought for direction on Wednesday as Brent crude oil and natural gas prices rose in response to intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine’s largest cities.

The regional Stoxx Europe 600 switched between gains and losses in morning trading after a sharp decline in the previous session, as investors balanced the potential for economic consequences of the crisis with that of central banks to reverse previous signals that they are ready to end the pandemic. support.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.8 percent, while futures contracts tracking the S&P 500 index on Wall Street added 0.8 percent.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 5.9 percent to $ 111 a barrel after US President Joe Biden declared Russia isolated from the world and hinted at new economic sanctions.

Meanwhile, European natural gas prices have reached record highs. Futures related to TTF, Europe’s wholesale natural gas price, rose more than 50 percent to 185 euros per megawatt-hour before cutting its profits to 146 euros.

Sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries have so far sought to evade the energy sector, but have nevertheless caused instability in global markets due to fears of supply disruptions.

“Brent crude oil is the biggest factor in fears for stock markets,” said Martin Gerdinck, head of European equities at Dutch investment firm NN Partners. “If it becomes ballistic and moves to $ 150 or more per barrel, then [economic] growth is really slowing down. ”

But Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird, said: “The war has a sense of risk aversion, but it could also put the Federal Reserve and other central banks on a less aggressive path of tightening.

Yields on the German reference 10-year Bund rose 0.03 percentage points to minus 0.04 percent. This was followed by a sharp rise in US, UK and eurozone government bonds on Tuesday as derivatives markets began to price at a much slower pace than central banks, which were expected to emerge from monetary support from the pandemic era. with a series of interest rate hikes.

Yields on 10-year US government bonds rose 0.02 percentage points to 1.73%. This debt yield, which is at the heart of global borrowing costs, fell by almost 0.1 percentage point on Tuesday and returned to levels last seen in January, before Fed Chairman Jay Powell prepared financial markets for the series from aggressive interest rate hikes.

The latest oil gains, which have left Brent about 15 percent higher since President Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, came as Russia stepped up bombings of its neighbor’s largest cities. Prices have risen, although the United States and 30 other countries have said they will release 60 million barrels of their strategic reserves.

Biden has come under increasing pressure to ban Russian oil imports, with Republicans and Democrats calling on the US president to sever energy ties with the Kremlin. In a speech on the state of the Union on Tuesday, Biden voiced support for sanctions against Russia, but stressed that price control was his “highest priority”.

Russia’s central bank said the Moscow Stock Exchange, which was not open for trading on Monday, would remain closed on Wednesday.