COVID, war and things like that

I have no hot takes on Ukraine or Russia or anything like that and I'm sure you'll thank me for that. Instead, I'll focus on the apparent impact of world events on our investment and savings activities and what, if anything, should we all do about that. By now, it's reasonably clear that the movers of markets around the world seem to think that this is a passing cloud. The US markets have been falling for a few weeks now. In recent days, as some kind of a conflict looked more and more likely, the decline had sharpened. However, the day after the action began they turned upwards, with the S&P 500 index recording an increase of 1.5 per cent, which is quite substantial. Notably, the Ukraine situation had no role in the decline during January. In India too, we have seen something similar. On February 24, 2022, when fighting had just begun in Ukraine, the markets fell by almost 5 per cent - the worst single day in