Wall Street Slides As Russia Attacks Ukraine

Wall Street's main indexes fell in volatile trading on Thursday as a Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked a selloff across most sectors, although gains in some megacap stocks helped limit losses on the Nasdaq.

Global shares slumped and oil prices broke above $100 a barrel, while safe-havens assets such as gold, government bonds and the dollar surged as investors scurried for safety. [MKTS/GLOB]

All the 11 major S&P sectors were in the red, led by a 3.6% fall in financial shares . The banks index slumped 5.2% as U.S. Treasury yields slid. [O/R]

The Dow is down nearly 11.7% from its record close on Jan. 4, putting it on track to confirm a correction - a decline of 10% or more - from its all-time closing peak.

Ukrainian forces battled Russian invaders on three sides on Thursday after Moscow mounted an assault by land, sea and air in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

The United States and its allies have promised tough sanctions against Moscow after weeks of fruitless diplomatic efforts and an initial wave of modest sanctions. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce the sanctions later in the day.

"There's just so much uncertainty right now about how far the West could go with this. It's a confidence knocker," said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.

Markets have also started pricing in a less hawkish Federal Reserve given the likely economic fallout from Russia's actions. Traders now see an over 85% chance for a 25 basis points hike in interest rates at the March meeting, and only 13% for a larger raise, according to CME's Fedwatch tool.

While banks slumped, interest-rate sensitive tech stocks and large-cap growth names such as Amazon.com Inc, Netflix Inc, Google-parent Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp rose between 0.9% and 1.7%.

"It appears as though the conflict in Ukraine could put-off the table a 50 bps rate hike in March and that is definitely a place where tech stocks would start to rally," said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia.

"Some investors are making some opportunistic purchases in and around large-cap tech, because it's sold off so much over the last month and a half."

The CBOE Volatility index, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, was last trading at 34.06, its highest since Jan. 25.

At 12:39 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 642.25 points, or 1.94%, at 32,489.51 and the S&P 500 dropped 45.14 points, or 1.07%, at 4,180.36.

The Nasdaq Composite slipped 11.93 points, or 0.09%, at 13,025.56. The index had fallen as much as 3.4% in early trading, taking its losses from its November record high to over 20% and bringing it closer to bear-market territory.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 2.63-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.77-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 2 new 52-week highs and 64 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 11 new highs and 962 new lows.