Peter Nurse   

Investing.com reports that U.S. stocks opened lower Monday amid fears Russia might invade Ukraine. The threat could result in harsh sanctions, which could hamper the world’s recovery from the pandemic.

At 7:20 AM ET (1200 GMT), it was down 230 point, or 0.7%. The contract traded 33 points lower, or 0.8%. And dropped 140 points (or 1%) at the same time, trading at 3:33 PM ET.

In an interview on CNN Sunday, Jake Sullivan, White House National Security Adviser said that a Russian invasion could occur any time. The U.S., along with several western nations have advised Ukrainian nationals to flee the country.

On Monday, the Finance Ministers from G7 large economies warned Russia about “massive economic consequences” if it invaded Ukraine. 

The G7 Finance Ministers made a joint statement that stated, “Any additional military aggression by Russia towards Ukraine will be met with an immediate, coordinated and forcible response.” We are ready to collectively impose financial and economic sanctions that will have huge and immediate effects on the Russian economy.

This would likely mean sanctions on Russia’s financial system, making it difficult for western companies to pay for the country’s crude exports and forcing them to chase supplies elsewhere, likely pushing energy prices higher.

Wall Street’s main averages closed lower Friday due to investors being concerned about a hot inflation report and deteriorating consumer sentiment.

On Friday, the blue-chip was down 1.4% or 500 points. The week ended 1% lower. Broad-based fell 1.9% in the final session and dropped 2.8% over the course of the week, which resulted in weekly losses exceeding 1.8% and 2% respectively.

The week’s main economic focus will be Wednesday’s from the Fed’s January meeting, as investors look for any indications on whether the central bank is likely to hike rates by half a percentage point at its upcoming March meeting.

Let’s now turn to the corporate sector. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: ) will remain in the spotlight after Aerojet Rocketdyne pulled out of plans to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne. (NYSE 🙂 was subject to antitrust regulators’ demands.

Prices for oil fell slightly, after having reached their highest point in over seven years. 

Russia is one of the world’s top crude producers, and any sanctions on its output would disrupt the global supply just as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, struggles to ramp up output to cope with recovering demand. 

Futures were trading 0.2% lower at $92.92 per barrel by 7:01 AM ET. This was after the price had fallen to its highest level since September 2014. The contract dropped 0.3%, reaching $94.18, having previously reached its highest point since October 2014.

Also, the price of gold rose 0.9% at $1,857.75/oz while it traded 0.3% lower to 1.1310.