Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — The U.S. stock market opened lower Thursday due to disappointment over the inability of the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries to reach a ceasefire.

Sergey Lavrov’s negotiations with Dmytro Kuneba in Turkey were the most high-level contacts between the countries since Russia invaded two week ago. No visible progress was made. 

U.S. consumer inflation data from February revealed that prices had risen at an unprecedented rate of growth in the past 40 years. It reinforced this downbeat outlook and set expectations for a Federal Reserve first interest rate rise in just two weeks. 

By 9:40 ET (1440 GMT), the had fallen 325 points (or 1.0%) while the was still down by an equal amount. Meanwhile, the and were both down 1.4%. These indices were up between 2% to 3.6% in advance of the talks.

According to expectations, it accelerated to 7.9% by February. It was also the highest rate since January 1982. 

In a note to clients, Kathy Bostjancic, Oxford Economics, stated that the Russia-Ukraine conflict adds fuel to the rapid rate of inflation through higher food and energy prices, as well as core commodity prices, which are turbo charged due to a worsening supply chain problem. The result will be a more immediate peak of inflation, and a slow descent to 2022 than originally thought.

Bostjancic predicts an inflation rate of 6.5% for this year. This will lead the Fed to increase rates by 175 Basis Points. 

Amazon (NASDAQ:) stock bucked the negative  trend in early dealings, rising 4.8% thanks to the announcement late on Wednesday of a new $10 billion buyback program and a 20-for-1 stock split that’s aimed at making the stock more easily accessible to smaller investors. The stock had fallen 15% in the past year by Wednesday’s close.

Amazon’s China ecommerce rivals in China came under greater scrutiny, with JD.com reporting its slowest sales growth for six quarters along with operating losses due to increased input costs. JD.com (NASDAQ:) ADRs fell 14%, dragging rival Pinduoduo The stock of (NASDAQ:) fell by the same amount. Ke Holdings, a Chinese online agent, fell 16% more after reporting an inexorable net loss and worsening operating margins during the fourth quarter. 

Asana (NYSE 🙂 dropped 24% when it predicted that its revenue growth would be 40%, down from 67% the year before. The pandemic, remote work and other favorable circumstances had made it more attractive.