Review of what happened so far in Ukraine, and GB100 in the UK.
Russia and Ukraine made "significant progress" before they give a pause in the latest round of negotiations, but the specific agreement is not clear. The latest round of negotiators started earlier today to discuss a peace treaty and ceasefire. Russian negotiators had no comments after the meeting, but the Ukrainian side was happy with the progress.
This is while international sanctions against Russia continued to escalate. Among them, the United States prohibits the direct or indirect supply of US dollar banknotes to the Russian government or individuals connected to the Russian government. At the same time, Biden committed to revoking Russia's status as a "most favored nation" on Friday. If it will be approved, tariffs on Russian imports will increase exponentially.
In terms of energy, Australia also announced a ban on the import of Russian oil, natural gas, and coal. They also sanctioned the same list of Russian Oligarchies that last week the UK used, Japan said it would ban the export of 57 types of high-tech products to Russia and would take more steps if needed. The European Union, which is highly dependent on Russian gas, will do not join the sanctions, but "plans to gradually wean itself off its dependence on Russian coal and oil."
But is just one side of the story, another side is the Russian narrative and possibilities. So far, the Russian foreign minister countered that it would not rule out a tough confrontation with the European Union in the energy sector if necessary, which could pay three times as much for oil, gas, and electricity in case Russia also wants to react to the sanctions. Russia is not just one of the main Energy exporters in the world, many other raw materials also come from there. And finally, we should not forget about the indirect effects of this war, like increasing the cost of insurance, and so on, which increase the cost of international trade.
Anyway, positive comments from peace talks and less Hawkish expected policies from Tomorrow's two-day meeting of FED, helped the US stock markets to be a bit stable today at the beginning of the week, while European stocks were amazing, got boosted by UK data. Last Friday's published data showed that Britain's economy rebounded much faster than expectations in January, with gross domestic product growing by 0.8% on the month after a 0.2% decline in December. These positive data and sentiment, lifted the European markets to see DAX 2.6% higher, France CAC40 gaining 2.2%, and Footsie to increase by 0.7%. This rally actually could be short-lived, if tensions in Ukraine continue, which hits the European economy more than others. BoE will hold its meeting later this week, and most probably we will have more caution in the market before Wednesday's FED and Thursday's BoE announcements.
From the technical point of view, GB100 moves in a clear downtrend but trying to recover higher. The first resistance sits at 20-DMA at 7,315. If you change the time frame to H1 and H4, then you can see that bulls already started their rally and RSI above 55 in both time-frame supports the bullish trend. OBV trend line also increasing in both mentioned time frames to confirm that with increasing prices, the market volume also increasing and somehow supporting the trend at least in the short term. For any further changes, we have to wait for FED and BoE monetary policy meetings later this week.
