Forex Today: Russia Begins Military Strike on Ukraine

The Russian ruble has lost 6% of its value against the USD in a matter of hours, while the Russian stock market has been completely suspended.The S&P 500 Index is trading off-hours at its lowest level since May 2021.Several agricultural commodities such as soybeans and corn advanced strongly to new long-term highs yesterday, while wheat, a major Ukrainian export, rose by an unusually large 3.5%.Today will see a release of Preliminary US GDP data. Annualized growth of 7% is expected.Daily new coronavirus cases globally seem to have peaked five weeks ago, showing that the omicron variant wave is in strong decline almost everywhere.It is estimated that 62.5% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 430.2 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.38%.The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing only in Bhutan, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Honduras, Iceland, Indonesia, South Korea, Latvia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.