“Investors should sit tight and, if they have the stomach for it, they should start to cherry pick investments” to buy while the market is down, she said.
Investing in Russia itself is risky, said Alastair Reynolds, portfolio manager at Martin Currie, an investment management firm in New York City.
“Russia represents a small but highly conspicuous part of the emerging markets universe. As an investment opportunity it is driven by political risk, given that the country’s stock market is dominated by state-owned national champions, which is reflected in its deep downturn today," Reynolds said in a statement.
“We have taken a cautious approach to the Russia-Ukraine situation by limiting our overall exposure to the region. We view state-linked businesses in Russia as being at greatest risk of equity market sanctions,” he added.>
Energy is likely to see the most impact from the Ukraine invasion, according to Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for the Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Mass. “This situation will likely keep inflation higher than it would have been. And the effects will be worse in Europe than here, which will hit global growth and sales. These indirect effects are all real, and they could negatively affect the markets going forward,” McMillan said in a statement.
But there also are positives coming out of the continuing international tension, he said. For example, oil drilling already has increased in the United States. “This scenario could slow down the Fed’s interest rate increases. It could also bring rates back down—to the benefit of stock valuations,” McMillan said.
“At some point, there is a real possibility that the Russia-Ukraine crisis will pass. This outcome would leave us in a more stable situation with lower levels of fear, which would push economic growth and the markets back up. Bad things could and likely will happen, but so will good things, often as a direct result of the bad things. Either way, the impact on markets, over time, will be limited,” McMillan concluded.