Stocks on Wall Street fell on Monday and commodity prices rose as the war in Ukraine entered its fifth day and a widening array of sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for its invasion began to bite.

The S&P 500 fell about 0.2 percent after dropping as much as 1.5 percent earlier in the day. Stock indexes in Europe also ended well off their lowest point of the day, with the Stoxx Europe 600 down about 0.1 percent.

In Russia, the ruble cratered, and the Bank of Russia responded by more than doubling its key interest rate to 20 percent to try to control the damage from the sanctions. The country’s central bank also said it would release about $7 billion worth of bank reserves that had been set aside as a buffer for unsecured consumer and mortgage loans.

The sanctions imposed by governments in Europe and the United States so far include financial measures against Russian elites, banks and nonfinancial companies; bans on technological exports to Russia and on flights by Russian airlines; suspension of the approval process for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany; and measures isolating Russia’s biggest banks.





Over the weekend, the United States, the European Commission, Britain and Canada agreed to remove some Russian banks from the international system of payments known as SWIFT — a move that essentially bars the banks from international transactions and is seen as a steep escalation of the effort to impose financial penalties on Russia.

The measure could disrupt the country’s exports, and investors are already concerned that the impact on Russia’s ability to export its commodities, including oil and wheat, could have an inflationary effect on the global economy.



Russia produces more than 10 million barrels a day of crude oil, behind only the United States and Saudi Arabia. Oil prices rose about 3 percent on Monday, and shares of energy producers were among the best performers on Wall Street. Brent crude traded at just under $101 a barrel.

On Monday, the Treasury Department said that it would freeze assets of the Russian Central Bank that are held in the United States and impose sanctions on the Russian Direct Investment Fund, while Switzerland said it would freeze Russian assets in Swiss bank.

European banks with major holdings in Russia were among the big losers on Monday. UniCredit of Italy fell 9.5 percent, and Raiffeisen Bank International in Austria lost 14 percent. The European Central Bank said that Sberbank Europe, a subsidiary of one of Russia’s biggest banks, was on the verge of collapse Monday as Western sanctions took a toll. The economic damage from supply disruptions and economic sanctions would be severe in some countries and industries and unnoticed in others.

The cost of energy. Oil prices already are the highest since 2014, and they have risen as the conflict has escalated. Russia is the third-largest producer of oil, providing roughly one of every 10 barrels the global economy consumes.

Gas supplies. Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and it is likely to be walloped with higher heating bills. Natural gas reserves are running low, and European leaders have accused Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, of reducing supplies to gain a political edge.

Food prices. Russia is the world’s largest supplier of wheat and, together with Ukraine, accounts for nearly a quarter of total global exports. In countries like Egypt and Turkey, that flow of grain makes up more than 70 percent of wheat imports.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctions designed to restrict Russia’s access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

Big Wall Street banks were among the worst performers in the S&P 500. Citigroup fell 4.4 percent, while JPMorgan Chase was down 4.2 percent and Goldman Sachs dropped 2.5 percent.

Shares of BP, the British oil company, fell 4 percent in London after it said on Sunday that it would no longer hold its 20 percent stake in the Russian oil giant Rosneft. It did not say whether it would sell the shares or abandon them. The decision could lead to a write-down of as much as $25 billion for BP.

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq on Monday halted trading of shares of several Russian companies, including the steel company Mechel PAO and the internet company Yandex. Halts are not suspensions or delistings; they are meant to give the exchange time to gather information about the impact of recent events on a company.

The yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury notes, a traditional haven in crises, fell thirteen basis points to 1.84 percent.

Treasury yields had been rising this year in anticipation of Federal Reserve short-term interest rate increases aimed at combating inflation, but a surge of investor bids during the Ukraine crisis reversed that trend.

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