Russia invades Ukraine how does this affect your finances?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Gold is $1958, Oil over $100 a barrel, wheat up 20%, bitcoin slides to $35,000, etc. I've been slowly selling off equities but still have small holdings about $20,000 invested. Gold about $60,000 in an IRA (physical gold), Silver ETF $20,000. Bitcoin about .75, 3 Etheriums, 5 Litecoins, etc. Just yesterday I sold my position in the VXX for an $840 profit. Now I wished that I held on to it because it will be going straight up. CNBC said the CBOE Vix is up 20%.

[bjl584]

I've bled out over $50K so far.
But it's all on paper.

The rise in fuel prices stings a little, but I normally clock less than 20 miles a day, so not too much pain there.

I still have a couple decades till retirement, so I'm just staying the course.

[disneysteve]

Russia's attack is horrific. The best we can hope for is a short war with minimal casualties.

Clearly, this is going to have a huge impact on the world economy. Dow futures are down about 1,000 this morning I think so things will be ugly on Wall Street today, after already being bad the past week with the build up to the war.

Personally, our portfolio was already down about 150K YTD as of 2 days ago. It dropped more yesterday and likely will drop even more today.

It's certainly not looking good.

[Fishindude77]

Hard telling what it will do to our investments, but hope our leaders have enough sense to sit this one out.
Sheesh ! ..... we just got out of 20 years in Afghanistan.

[kork13]

Hard telling what it will do to our investments, but hope our leaders have enough sense to sit this one out.
Sheesh ! ..... we just got out of 20 years in Afghanistan.

As a military member in a high tempo/high demand unit, this is the greatest threat to my family's stability & by extension our finances. However, my (unofficial/personal) viewpoint is that there's very little political appetite for the US to go toe-to-toe against Russia in defense of a non-NATO ally with which we've had a troublesome relationship. As one of those who navigated us through the exit (more like bumbling stagger, no thanks to D.C.) from Afghanistan (and previously Iraq.... The 2nd time, leading into this 3rd time), I have no desire to subject our military or the world to such a conflict.

The "best" course of action here is to slam Russia with truly crippling economic sanctions (especially on their banking systems' access to the global commons & strangling their petroleum exports) while launching a full-press effort to supply Europe with petroleum products via other channels. The government has reportedly been working on such options for European fuels, but they need a global effort to make it successful. My fear is that the current administration & our global allies/partners will not act in the concerted, complimentary, coherent, and aggressive manner that will be necessary to force Russia's bloodied hand. However, if they DO get their act together & to something(s) big, those effects will ripple throughout the global economy for months or years.

As for our personal finances, no idea. I'm not tracking my investments close enough to know how much they're obviously down... Nor am I significantly concerned, as I have plenty of time to recover such losses. Daily expenses may (continue) to spiral upward, but what else is new? The only immediate thing I'm seeing (as I mentioned in another thread this morning) is that I expect all of my standing "bad day" limit orders from over a month ago to execute. That led me to move some extra cash into my brokerage from savings, just in case that comes to fruition.

[rennigade]

I havent even done our finances. Ill wait till the end of the month and see how much we're down for the year. Im guessing we're down $100k or so.

[james.hendrickson]

I've been processing the news from Ukraine - its pretty rugged. The Russians are throwing missiles around and the civilian population is scrambling to get to Poland.

My stocks are down 2% or so - none of them had any real exposure to Ukrainian markets.

[james.hendrickson]

As a military member in a high tempo/high demand unit, this is the greatest threat to my family's stability & by extension our finances. However, my (unofficial/personal) viewpoint is that there's very little political appetite for the US to go toe-to-toe against Russia in defense of a non-NATO ally with which we've had a troublesome relationship. As one of those who navigated us through the exit (more like bumbling stagger, no thanks to D.C.) from Afghanistan (and previously Iraq.... The 2nd time, leading into this 3rd time), I have no desire to subject our military or the world to such a conflict.

No doubt Kork, the US won't go to war over this, and NATO probably won't either.

[kork13]

I've been processing the news from Ukraine - its pretty rugged. The Russians are throwing missiles around and the civilian population is scrambling to get to Poland.

I may need to turn off my news alerts, because with as busy as I/we already am, watching this unfold in such a predictable & textbook manner, paired with the realistic expectation that very little will be done to truly stop it in time to matter..... As I said elsewhere, it's just stressing me out even more. I live, work, and breathe national security & defense issues, and it kills me to watch the bad guys (read: over-powered dictatorship) win.

[james.hendrickson]

I may need to turn off my news alerts, because with as busy as I/we already am, watching this unfold in such a predictable & textbook manner, paired with the realistic expectation that very little will be done to truly stop it in time to matter..... As I said elsewhere, it's just stressing me out even more. I live, work, and breathe national security & defense issues, and it kills me to watch the bad guys (read: over-powered dictatorship) win.

Kork, for me, I feel I need to learn to be more persuasive. I have a couple of friends in Ukraine I was trying to convince to take a long vacation, but I just couldn't get the message through in time.

[ua_guy]

Now is not the time to freak out. But there is big reason to be nervous. I haven't looked at the impact to my investments and probably won't to save myself the headache today; I'm in this for the long haul, and, sadly, this conflict is just getting started. I think it gets worse from here.

[corn18]

Belarus is next.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Los Angeles gas prices has been $4.49 for quite some time but I expect it soon to surpass $5 or $6 soon.

[bjl584]

Belarus is next.

I've heard Putin mention he wants to reform the USSR
Wondering if Ukraine is just the start of something bigger?

[corn18]

I've heard Putin mention he wants to reform the USSR
Wondering if Ukraine is just the start of something bigger?

It is. Belarus seems allied with Russia, so he probably doesn't need to invade them. He won't invade a NATO country, though. Best thing we can do is get back to energy independence. Russi's GDP is $1.5T and that would rank 4th among US states. And 35% of that is oil/gas. Just do what we did in the cold war and bankrupt them.

To answer the OP, I hit the panic button on my retirement model this morning. That button runs a macro that cuts spending back by 33% to a paltry $120k / year. Seems we're ok. Although it is disappointing to see all of my gains since retirement almost wiped out (that tiny line in the bottom left of the graph). The market giveth, the market taketh away.