The war between Russia and Ukraine continues for 12 days now, and despite the negotiations, the conflict rages on. The turmoil caused gold – a historical safe haven – to surge in price and even top $2,000 for the first time in months.
On February 24th, the Russian President – Vladimir Putin – announced that his country will conduct a military operation in Ukraine which, according to the entire Western world, turned out to be a flat-out war.
This move sent traditional stock markets and cryptocurrencies in shambles as they lost a serious chunk of their value. A day later, though, there was a massive recovery, but it appears that the bounce is now coming to an end.
In any case, amid all this, gold prices have been surging, once again providing merit to the safe haven narrative. At the time of this writing, gold is trading slightly below $2,000, but it peaked at around $2001.06 hours ago. The last time it was trading this high was back in August 2020.
While gold prices skyrocket, risk-on assets are not having the best time. Bitcoin is down about 13.5% in the past six days, trading at around $38,000 at the time of this writing. In other words, we are back to where the cryptocurrency was trading before the leap following the war, and it’s essential to see how prices bode at this rate.
Equities markets are also faring pretty badly. DOW Futures are down 1% in pre-market hours on Monday, which is also true for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.
It’s interesting to see how markets will behave during the US trading session once Wall Street opens.
