* Russia expands its war to western Ukraine
* Treasury Sec. Yellen: another year of ‘very uncomfortably high’ inflation is likely
* Putin considers nationalizing businesses as Russia is disconnected from West
* SEC hints at delisting US-listed Chinese stocks from American exchanges
* China battles biggest coronavirus outbreak in two years
* Economic shockwave from Ukraine war begins to spread in Europe
* Why are many commodities funds underperforming as prices surge?
* US jobless claims rose last week but remain close to multi-decade low
* US consumer inflation continued rising in February, reaching new 40-year high:

It’s all about beta now — broad stock-market beta, which is deeply negative year to date. Pulling free from that downside force via an equity strategy is challenging. Surprising? Not really. History clearly shows that return correlations within the equities space tend to move close to 1.0 during sharp corrections and bear markets. In line with that track record, the broad sell-off in US stocks so far this year has weighed on an expansive set of ETFs representing various equity factor risks. But the degree of pain varies widely, which suggests that factor diversification, while hardly a silver bullet, is still worthwhile.

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* Russia and Ukraine meet for talks in Turkey as war rages on
* House passes bill to ban imports of Russian oil to US
* $1.5 trillion federal spending bill to fund US government approved in the House
* CIA director: a frustrated Putin will ‘double down’ and escalate military action
* UK economist sees a risk of high inflation persisting for years
* South Korea’s new president aims for tougher stance on North Korea
* China’s economy may face rising economic risk via fallout from Ukraine war
* Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spurs rethink on how to assign country risk
* US job openings slipped in January but remain near record high:

The war in Ukraine has slowed the advance of the 10-year Treasury yield, but upside pressure is building as US inflation, already elevated, appears set to increase further in the months ahead.

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* Biden announces ban on Russian oil imports to US
* Reducing Ukraine to rubble increasingly appears to be Putin’s endgame
* Saudi, Emirati leaders signal they won’t help lower oil prices
* US recession risk will rise if oil prices continue to surge, analysts predict
* Venezuela releases 2 Americans in possible sign of thaw in relations with US
* US inflation may soon reach 10%, predicts DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach
* US trade deficit reaches new record in January
* China consumer inflation steady as factory-gate prices ease
* Small business sentiment in US continues to fall as inflation weighs on mood
* US Treasury market’s implied inflation forecasts continue to rise sharply:

The US stock market appears to be caught in another one of its extended corrections. Is this the start of a long bear market? Or could this be just another garden variety correction that ends quickly? As always, the future’s uncertain. All the more so given the global blowback due to the war in Ukraine.

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* Ukraine president remains defiant as Russian invasion continues
* US moving closer to Russian oil ban
* Russia says it may cut off gas supply to Germany if West bans Russian oil
* Five possible outcomes for the war in Ukraine
* A global food crisis may be lurking due to the war in Ukraine
* UK facing recession if energy prices remain high, research group advises
* Biden will sign exec order for overseeing cryptocurrencies
* US gasoline prices reaches a record high
* Can China bail out Russia’s economy? That’s going to be quite challenging
* Despite surging oil prices, Russia’s oil industry is heading for rough times
* Germany’s industrial output surged in January, ahead of the war in Ukraine
* US Dollar Index at highest in nearly 2 years as demand increases for safe assets :

Commodities remained the best-performing asset class by far last week for the major asset classes, based on a set of ETFs through Friday’s close (Mar. 4). The ongoing Ukraine war is the catalyst and for the immediate future more of the same appears to be the likely path ahead.

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* US and European officials discussing plans for Ukrainian government in exile
* US talking with allies re: banning imports of Russian oil, says US Sec. of State
* West resists calls from Ukraine for establishing a no-fly zone
* US walks fine line supplying arms to Ukraine and avoiding direct conflict
* Ukraine war will shock food supply and cost, warns exec at fertilizer firm
* Average US gasoline price tops $4 a gallon, highest since 2008
* Forecasters increasingly cautious on US economic outlook
* US payrolls rebounded in February, rising well above the consensus forecast:

● Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic—and Prevented Economic Disaster
Nick Timiraos
Review via Publishers Weekly
Timiraos weaves a lucid behind-the-scenes narrative of the early Covid panic, when Powell and the Fed staff struggled hour by hour to get money out to a collapsing economy and worked with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a fractious Congress to cobble together emergency fiscal measures, while cogently exploring the economic trade-offs among unemployment, inflation, stability, and moral hazard. This is a riveting story of policy making in crisis and an illuminating examination of how drastically the Fed’s role in the economy has changed.

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