Stock markets, energy prices shaken by Russian attack

Financial markets across the world shook Thursday in the hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched military action in Ukraine.

As the first explosions were reported from Ukrainian cities, Chinese and Japanese markets lost nearly 2%, while markets in closer to the fighting doubled the Asian markets' losses.

Moscow’s stock exchange suspended all trading briefly Thursday morning. After trading resumed, the ruble-denominated MOEX stock index tumbled more than 20%, and the dollar-denominated RTS index plunged by more than a third, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. markets opened sharply lower – S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average were off by more than 2.5% – but recovered completely in afternoon trading following President Biden's announcement of a second round of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on some key U.S. exports to the country.

Thursday's trading threatened to push the S&P 500 deeper into correction territory – a decline of more than 10%. The index of the largest U.S. stocks is down 10.6% since its last peak on Jan. 3.

How major global stock indexes fared on Thursday

After Thursday's markets had closed, European consumers had been hit the hardest. Energy commodities generally rose across the world, but European natural gas futures jumped much as 62% on the benchmark Dutch TTF Natural Gas futures, the most since at least 2005. 

Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate oil futures topped $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014 because of possible supply disruptions from Russia. Both closed the day up slightly and well below the $100 milestone.

European natural gas prices jump

European consumers had already been struggling this winter with huge increases in the cost of natural gas. A large part of the winter run-up surrounded Russia's massing of troops around the Ukrainian border in December.  

European natural gas prices up more than 700%

One of the largest sources of revenue for Russia is the natural gas it supplies to western Europe, much of it through pipelines. In fact, Russia is the world’s largest supplier of natural gas to Europe. Its exports accounted for about 39% of the continent's supply as of 2018, McKinsey reports. Norway was a distant second at 27%.

Thursday's trading likely reflects investors concerns about further disruptions in the flow of natural gas from Russia to Europe. 

Contributing: The Associated Press