Ukraine war : What explains the calm in global stock markets?

Robin Wigglesworth in Oslo, Philip Stafford and Tommy Stubbington in London

The West's financial warfare against Russia has been dramatic. Commodity markets are chaotic, stoking already uncomfortably high inflation, and global economic growth forecasts have been marked down as a result. Many businesses face big hits from their exits from Russia.

Yet many investors and analysts have been surprised at the remarkably modest fallout for the global financial system, and the lack of broader, serious reverberations so far. After initially deepening the global stock market sell-off, the MSCI All-Country World Index has now jumped back above its prewar level, and the Vix volatility index - a proxy for how much fear there is in markets - has slipped below its long-term average, indicating a fall in anxiety.