The pictures from Ukraine are hard to bear.

Crying parents trying to get their children to safety, families sleeping in subway stations, rockets apparently falling in the middle of residential areas.

In addition, there are Western heads of state who express a great deal of regret and criticism, but whose reaction to the completely uninhibited Vladimir Putin comes across as more than half-hearted and helpless.

Tim Kanning

Editor in Business.

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Militarily, no one will stand by the Ukrainians.

And when it comes to sanctions, the West does not go so far that it would really hurt it.

And so the stock exchanges apparently quickly came to the conclusion that the attack on Ukraine will probably be more of a quick, ugly slaughter than the previously feared Third World War.

In any case, investors used the short setback on many stock markets on Friday in droves to hunt for bargains.

This became particularly clear on the Moscow stock exchange.

After the leading index RTS lost up to 50 percent in value on day one of the invasion, it had already reduced the losses to 40 percent by the end of trading.

On Friday it went up again by 30 percent.

The American stock exchanges were hardly impressed at all by the war in Europe and closed with significant gains on Thursday.

Energy suppliers are increasing

The German stock market also switched to recovery again on Friday.

The Dax was up 3.4 percent in the afternoon after losing almost 4 percent the day before.

Deutsche Bank and MTU, which lost particularly heavily on Thursday, gained more than 5 percent.

The price gains for the two large energy suppliers RWE and Eon were even stronger, as they could possibly benefit from the reorganization of the energy supply.

There was speculation, for example, about extending the service life of coal-fired power plants in order to become less dependent on Putin's gas.

The week went really well for investors who invested in armaments in good time.

Shares in the German armaments supplier Hensoldt rose by a quarter.

Rheinmetall shares have increased by more than 15 percent since the beginning of the war.

And shares in British bomber and warship maker BAE rose more than 10 percent.

Markets are cynical, a professional investor said on Thursday.

Nothing to add at the end of the week.