The pan-European STOXX 600 fell to post its worst weekly decline since the COVID-19 pandemic-fueled sell-off in March 2020. Dutch bank ING dropped 6.1 percent after it said that about 700 million euros (US$771 million) in outstanding loans were affected by “new sanctions. The share prices of UK banks Lloyds and NatWest are both down more than 10% since the start of the invasion, for example. Reuters has reported that US companies have about $15 billion of exposure to Russia. Many of these debts will potentially end up being written.

The National Bank of Poland also stepped in to prop up its currency by selling foreign currency for zlotys, while the National Bank of Hungary delivered its biggest rate increase since late-2008 to rein in the forint from successive all-time-lows. The Czech National Bank (CNB) intervened in the foreign exchange market and is conducting operations to mitigate excessive fluctuations and depreciation of the crown.

UK Brent Crude hits $130 per barrel, up 10% today in Asian markets. US WTI Crude is also up 9% @ $126 per barrel. The U.S. buys Russian oil for technical reasons that are related to grade, refining profitability, and geography. One of them is that although Houston can launch men to the moon, it can’t easily ship crude to Los Angeles or New York because of maritime restrictions in the Jones Act, passed in the petro predawn of 1920. There’s a thoughtful case for allowing Russian oil imports that has to do with avoiding economic self-harm. Three percent of the roughly 209,000 oil barrels the U.S. imported per day in 2021 came from Russia.

Palm/Soybean/Vegetable Oil supply shock ahead - Malaysia exports are expected to rise after top producer Indonesia introduced a requirement for exporters to sell a portion of their products domestically. Crude palm oil (CPO) is being offered at about $1,925 a tonne, including cost, insurance and freight (CIF), in India for March shipments, compared with $1,865 for crude soybean oil. Sunflower oil supply is disrupted from the key Black Sea region. The biggest importers China and India are buying, as palm has become the costliest among the four major edible oils. All edible oils track each other's prices as they compete in the market, and any potential supply disruptions for one buoy the prices of the other counters. Soybean production in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay is expected to fall because of dry weather.

Natural gas prices in Europe and the United Kingdom soared to record highs Monday on supply fears. Europe gas reference Dutch TTF rocketed more than 50% to settle at 345 euros ($374) per megawatt hour and U.K. gas hit 800 pence (1,054 cents) per therm. Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom has said that it continues to deliver gas to Europe via Ukraine at normal levels. Gas prices are multiple times higher in Europe than the US. The combined LNG exports of the United States, Qatar, and Australia, and also Norway’s gas exports, can barely replace the 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian piped gas supplies annually.

Sanctions on Russia has begun to backfire on European banks holding Russian debts on their balance sheets. Germany's DAX is falling for the past week. Euro STOXX banks are facing a continuous declining share price. European cargo and passenger flights are becoming less profitable due to re-routing flights to Asia away from Russian airspace. European banks lost 30% of their value in two weeks‌‌. A research group that advises Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded that sanctions leveled on Russia will ultimately cause more damage to the U.S. and its allies. Video - French Economist warns that Europe is committing economic suicide and celebrating sanctions to virtue signal to the rest of the world. https://www.bitchute.com/video/iseh6pVIZdJq/

SPAIN - The average price of electricity in the wholesale market rose by 17% Monday, making it the most expensive day in history, with an average of €442/MWh. This increase is reportedly to be the rise in the price of natural gas even though Spain produced 43.6% of its electricity with renewable energy technologies in 2020. The EU plans a meeting to discuss how to decouple the price of gas and electricity. Electricity is 10 times higher than it was 1 year ago in Spain. The government has extended a tax break to customers on VAT. UK is paying similar prices and Italy slightly higher.

The US is working to revive the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was stopped during the Trump presidency. If the sanctions are lifted, Iranian banks will be added to the SWIFT messaging system and will be able to release millions of barrels of oil into the global market to ease the soaring oil prices due to sanctions on Russia. Israel had reached a strategic agreement with Russia to fight against Iran and its proxies. Israel is now dependent on Russia’s goodwill. https://en.irna.ir/news/84674678/Iran-s-oil-message-to-US

U.S. wheat futures have climbed past record highs set in 2007. The continuous wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was up 7% to $12.94 per bushel yesterday. The increase again hit the exchange’s high limit for how much the price could move in a day. Russia is the world’s leading exporter of wheat. The wheat market rose over 40 per cent last week, its biggest weekly rise on record. Hungary banned exports. Iraq and China announced plans to increase reserves. Reports of Corn and Wheat Futures Options Traders facing restrictions on buy orders to prevent further escalation.

Nickel futures contracts spiked more than 90% yesterday, sending prices above $55,000 a metric ton. The biggest-ever daily dollar gain ($26,000) in the 35-year history of the contract. The London Metal Exchange (LME) raises its margin requirements for nickel contracts by 12.5% a tonne effective at close of business on March 8. (A Margin Requirement is the percentage of marginable securities that an investor must pay for with his/her own cash). Russia accounts for 7% of global nickel and is the world's 3rd biggest exporter of refined nickel. Nickel is used in stainless steel, rechargeable batteries and superalloys.

Political uprisings due to food price shocks could be right around the corner for North Africa and the Middle East as it is exactly what lit the fire for the 2011 Arab Spring with armed rebellions and toppling of governments there. Russia and Ukraine delivered 86 per cent of Egypt’s wheat imports in 2020. Egypt now plans to plant more wheat. The average acre produces from 2,700 to 3,000 kilograms of wheat and using modern silos has helped reduce waste from levels of over 15%. To achieve self-sufficiency. Egypt would need over 6 million acres, which is more than half of the country’s agricultural area. Transition is neither quick nor easy. Food inflation is heavily affecting citizens in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia already. Remember, bread riots are what started both the Arab Spring and the French Revolution.

BREAKING- Nickel surged 110% today. The London Metal Exchange (LME) in an unprecedented move halted nickel trading and cancelled all trades today as a race to cover short positions saw prices double in just hours to record highs above $100,000 per tonne. High margin calls are presumably forcing investors to cover their short positions at any price, which appears to be catapulting the nickel price ever higher. A Chinese tycoon Xiang Guangda who controls the world’s largest nickel producer, Tsingshan Holding Group Co., has closed out part of his company’s short position in nickel futures and is facing billions of dollars in mark-to-market losses.

US senators proposed a bill targeting Russia's $132 billion in gold. The legislation would apply restrictions on American entities making gold transactions with Russia's central bank holdings. By sanctioning these reserves, the US plan to further isolate Russia from the world's economy. Investors are flocking to gold and Goldman Sachs said it's a "currency of last resort". Gold futures jumped to $2,053 up 3% an ounce today extending its rise toward record-high levels.

USA- US Heating oil rises 7.77% today to USD $4.23 per gallon. President Biden announced the U.S. will ban all Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia’s economy. He warned that Americans will see rising prices, saying, “Defending freedom is going to cost.” Biden said the U.S. was acting in close consultation with European allies, who are more dependent on Russian energy supplies and who he acknowledged may not be able to join in immediately.

The hacking gang Lapsus$ announced that it had stolen 190 GB of Samsung data, claiming it includes source code for Samsung TrustZone and Knox, biometric unlocking, bootloader servers activation, account verification and even some proprietary Qualcomm code. No personal information was stolen during the hack. The torrent containing these files has already been downloaded by at least 400 peers. They also recently stole a terabyte of sensitive data from Nvidia, and is allegedly currently negotiating with a potential buyer. https://tinyurl.com/h9tedfvm

Internet outage at various locations. New reports emerge from users stating no access to Wikipedia, Discord, Spotify and Amazon Web Services. Both Spotify and Discord now confirm they were suffering from outages that were disrupting service. Outages are also affecting other websites such as Cloudflare, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, AppStore, Netflix, Chase, TikTok. #ICE9

Cryptocurrency is turning out to be centralised and controlled by the very same financial parasites it was touted to evade. Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Alex Bornyakov, said that eight official letters were sent to crypto exchanges asking them to block, freeze or cancel operations for Russian users altogether.
❗️Coinbase is shutting down 25,000 wallets belonging to Russian customers in a political move tied to sanctions.
❗️The Swiss federal government plans to freeze cryptocurrencies belonging to Russian citizens and businesses located within the borders of Switzerland.
❗️Estonia calls for restrictions to crypto by Russian and Belarussian users. Links in the comments.

Shipping traffic near Russian ports has fallen by a third. Shipping companies A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and Mediterranean Shipping Co.—have temporarily suspended services to Russian ports. These actions are now leading to slowed container movements and containers stuck at ports which will soon result in a world-wide container shortage. Russia announces a ban on certain commodities being exported to western countries placing sanctions on Russia. Russia the #1 world wheat exporter is now moving it's trade towards China using SPFS and CIPS payment systems.

U.S. President Biden signed an EO requiring the gov't to assess the risks and benefits of creating a central bank digital dollar (CBDC). The Treasury Dep't, Commerce Dep't and other key agencies to prepare reports on "the future of money". U.S. Treasury announced today that the Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC) would form a new subgroup on digital asset financial education of the US public. Jim Rickards - "This has little to do with technology or monetary policy and everything to do with herding you into digital cattle chutes where you can be slaughtered with account freezes, seizures, etc".

Turkey AK Party Source - NATO ally Turkey's President Erdoğan during a phone call with President Putin discussed trade payments between them suggesting using the Russian ruble and Chinese yuan bypassing SWIFT and even possibly gold. Sunflower oil, raw materials and wheat en route to Turkey from Russia was also discussed. Turkey's textile and leather goods are negatively affected by sanctions on Russia due to millions in orders cancelled from Russia. Image- Turkey runs a services trade surplus with Russia.

Russia drops gold tax to encourage savers to dump dollars. Individuals no longer have to pay 20% VAT. The measure is meant to provide support to Russian citizens, looking to invest their rubles. In the past, when selling gold back to the bank, the VAT paid was not returned. London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and US CME Group both suspends 6 accredited Russian precious metals refiners from its Good Delivery Lists for gold and silver due to legislative pressure from the US.