Stock market fallout from Russian invasion of Ukraine

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (WDEF)-“Gas prices are rising so dramatically that it has started to cut into the family budget. Other than at the gas pump, consumer spending starts to take a hit,” said Hopkins.

In Ukraine, it’s terrifying, shelling and shootings are the number one concern.

Thankfully, currently in the US, it’s more subtle as gas prices skyrocket and the stock market continues to rise and fall like a roller coaster and is mostly in an overall down.

Financial analyst Chris Hopkins said this is due to several reasons, one of which is companies are pulling out of Russia, which is decreasing profits.

“We applaud, certainly from a political perspective. That’s the right thing to do, clearly, and a lot of corporations are making their move on their own but of course, that’s going to eat into their margins as well,” said Hopkins.

Another is the market goes down in the short term whenever there is a geopolitical conflict such as the Russian invasion or events like 9/11.

“Markets are pretty resilient and they recover pretty quickly from these global uncertainties. We know after 9/11 it didn’t take long for the market to recover. It, certainly, has recovered rapidly with the Iran war,” said Hopkins.”

Hopkins said what’s going on in the invasion is terrible but economically speaking in the most likely scenarios this means stocks and index funds are currently on sale for long term investors.

“Just one of those times our American investors, retirement savers, should just take the ride. If you’ve got a little cash on the side, you don’t rush out and buy everything but maybe you put a little bit of capital to work now that stocks are on sale,” said Hopkins.

Some say the March of 2020 stock market plunge comes to mind, but Hopkins said we are nowhere near that drop.

Brian Armstrong News 12 Now