Bansari Mayur Camdar, Amruta Khandekar

(Reuters) – The U.S. stock markets saw strong opening gains Tuesday thanks to positive signs in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that will bring an end to their conflict of over a week.

Moscow announced that it will drastically reduce its military activity in Ukraine focused on Kyiv/Chernihiv. This was after negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul.

European stocks rose, while prices plummeted to $107/barrel and safe-haven Gold tumbled by 1%. [O/R] [GOL/]

“It will fuel optimism (in stock market) because it shows the two sides are talking, and there will probably be some form of conclusion in near future,” stated Sam Stovall from CFRA Research.

In exchange for security assurances, Kyiv offered to adopt neutral status, which would allow it not to join military alliances nor host military bases.

Russia’s invasion, which started on February 24, has driven commodity and metal price increases, raising concerns about rising inflation. At a time when U.S. Federal Reserve, and other major central bank, withdraw the stimulus created during the COVID-19 Pandemic, there are also worries that the U.S. Federal Reserve may not be able to keep up with the demand for new money.

Although all three U.S.-based indexes look set for a March increase, the quarter will be their worst since January 2020 when the Pandemic caused havoc in financial markets.

8:26 AM ET ET rose 291 points (or 0.83%), rose 39.25 point or 0.86%, jumped 167.25 percent or 1.1%, and were up 291 points.

Even though bond markets are indicating a potential recession, strong economic data and megacap stock gains have supported the recent U.S. stock recovery.

As traders predicted that faster rate increases would harm the U.S. long-term economy, the spread between U.S. Treasury yields on the 2-year and 10 year terms fell below six basis point. [US/]

Tesla (NASDAQ:), rose 1.8% in premarket trades. The gains were extended from the previous session due to recent news on stock split plans. Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are also megacaps. Alphabet (NASDAQ) Inc. is another. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ) Gained 0.7% to 1.1%

Wall Street’s fear gauge (the ) fell to 18.99 points. This is its lowest level since mid-January.

FedEx Corp (NYSE 🙂 gained 3 percent after it named Raj Subramaniam its operating chief and succeeded Fred Smith as its founder.