By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com: Friday’s slump was caused by reports from Russia that it could launch an invasion of Ukraine anytime. Investors were also weighing the possibility of aggressive U.S. rates hikes.   

They fell by 2% and lost 1.4% (or 503 points), respectively. The dropped 2.8%.

U.S. National Security Jake Sullivan said to journalists on Friday that it isn’t claiming Putin made a final decision not to invade Ukraine. PBS reported that the Russian President had made an earlier decision to invade.

“We don’t say that President Putin made the final decision. We just said that there was sufficient concern from what we saw on ground.” [at the Ukraine border]Sullivan stated.

But, the national security advisor stressed that the Ukraine invasion was possible and could happen “anyday now”, since Russia already has the troops at its border to support a large military intervention.

PBS reported that Russia’s president instructed his army to continue with the invasion of Ukraine. Two administration officials said they expected the invasion to start next week.

{{twitter {“link”:”https://twitter.com/nickschifrin/status/1492203844155150339″}}}

After U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken stated that Russia has increased its force at Ukraine’s border and was ready to launch an invasion, the report from Putin confirming his decision arrived.

Investors chose safety and piled into U.S. debt pushing yields lower. The U.S. 10-year yield fell below 2%, while oil prices rose due to concerns about possible disruptions in oil supply. 

In the meantime, defense stocks include Lockheed Martin (NYSE 🙂 (NYSE :), and Northrop-Grumman (NYSE: ) (NYSE 🙂 were greater

Stocks were under pressure to start the day as investors evaluated the likelihood of the Federal Reserve raising rates more quickly and aggressively in response to James Bullard (St. Louis Fed President)’s hawkish remarks following the release of Thursday’s hot inflation report.

Bullard indicated that he supports the Fed increasing rates by 1 percentage point in July. He also backs hikes during Fed meetings.

“Every data point like the inflation report we had yesterday confirms that inflation is a large and growing issue for the markets,” Every one of those data points continues to reinforce how the Fed arguably is behind the curve,” Chief Market Strategist David Keller at StockCharts told Investing.com in an interview on Friday.

The market sold off in general because investors were concerned about the Fed increasing rates by 50 basis points at its March meeting.

Keller stated, “The reality about what a rising rate environment will mean for growth stocks, and how likely it will be that growth stocks outperform given that overall headwind, is something that many investors don’t realize, particularly those who are younger.”

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ :), Amazon.com. (NASDAQ :), Microsoft.com. (NASDAQ :), and Alphabet. (NASDAQ 🙂 finished the day in the red.

Technology is back in the spotlight, and value sectors such financials and energy are being viewed as the best places to hide in an inflationary and growing environment. But the recent run up in financials, up 2.6%, and energy up 27%, especially the latter is due for a pullback, which would likely be bought on the dip.

Although energy will likely see a slight decline, overall these sectors are expected to remain strong. [financials and energy]Keller said that the most likely sectors to outperform are still the ones they recommend.