World stocks markets edged lower yesterday, stung by growing worries over some emerging markets grew as escalating tensions in the Ukraine sent the Russian ruble to a five-year low, while equities on Wall Street rose.

The drop in the ruble came a day after China’s yuan had its biggest drop in three years, which weighed on shares of European luxury goods makers because of their heavy exposure to emerging markets.

The S&P 500 was on track to break its record closing high of 1,848.38 set on January 15, as data showing that sales of new US single-family homes surged to a 5-1/2-year high in January eased concerns about a slowing of economic momentum. The upbeat data was welcome after a string of soft economic releases, although investors have shown a willingness of late to forgive disappointing data due to harsh winter weather.

“The new-home sales did give us reason for some optimism today, although it does look like sort of an anomalous data point, especially given it was up so strongly in the East,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

“The market has really wanted to overlook any sort of negative news and it continues that pattern.”

The ruble slid as tensions escalated in Ukraine, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered drills by his armed forces to test combat readiness in western Russia, near the border with Ukraine.

The threat of debt default by Ukraine also increased. Russia holds $3 billion worth of Ukrainian debt issued last December, which could end up in default if certain terms are breached.

Ukraine has asked the International Monetary Fund to help prepare a new financial aid program, while the country’s central bank chairman said the new government would soon have its own anti-crisis pro-gram ready.

The ruble was at 36.025 to the dollar, after touching its lowest level since March 2009. Ukraine’s hryvnia hit a record low of 10 per dollar.

The market moves come as some investors have already been pulling money out of emerging markets and putting it back into better-understood deve-loped economies.

Chinese shares and the yuan stabilized after sharp falls on Tuesday, although dealers suspect the People’s Bank of China was maintaining a gradual squeeze on the yuan, to inject more two-way volatility into the market and wrong-foot speculators betting it would keep rising.

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