us stocks were flat to slightly higher monday starting off on a cautiously positive note after last weeks pullback as investors assessed the ramifications of a volatile weekend in russia and jitters around the economic outlook the sp 500 fell last week ending a streak of five straight weekly gains while the dow and nasdaq composite also pulled back the sp 500 and nasdaq hit 14month highs earlier this month see why the easy money has been made in the stockmarket rally  and what comes next so far the markets appear to be taking a waitandsee attitude toward the weekends eyeopening developments in russia but that element of geopolitical uncertainty unfolded just as the stock market suffered its first down week since midmay as the fed stuck to its hawkish script on interest rates said chris larkin managing director for trading and investing at etrade from morgan stanley in emailed comments seewhats next for markets after aborted wagner mutiny leaves russias putin weakened gold futures rose modestly and the yield on the 10year treasury fell as yevgeny prigozhin was reportedly headed for belarus after his wagner group troops had headed to moscow in a seeming challenge to russian president vladimir putin prigozhin abruptly halted the mutiny on saturday the overall reaction across financial markets however was relatively muted though analysts said the prospect of further internal strife after the incident left putin looking weak could stoke volatility while the human toll of the russiaukraine war is staggering the market reaction is largely a function of how the fighting affects commodity prices the political upheaval over the weekend didnt move oil or grain prices in a big way with crude futures up modestly early monday looking forward obviously this injects more geopolitical uncertainty into the world but as long as commodity prices dont spike higher the markets will largely ignore russian political volatility tom essaye founder of sevens report research said in a monday note worries about the global economy continued after a sharp drop in the german ifo business climate index for june the closely watched gauge declined to 885 in june from 915 in may according to data from the ifo institute published monday the reading fell short of expectations of 905 according to economists polled by the wall street journal a flurry of rate hikes by european central banks last week heightened worries about growth while federal reserve chair jerome powell reiterated that a strong majority of policy makers were in favor of two more quarterpoint rate increases after the central bank opted earlier this month to leave its fedfunds rate unchanged with fed chief powell reminding everyone the inflation fight is a long way from being over  and that the fed could raise rates another 05 before they call it quits  every inflation data point will be closely scrutinized said etrades larkin that includes fridays personalconsumption expenditures index the feds preferred inflation measure and the june jobs report next week he said which could determine whether last weeks pullback remains just that or turns into something bigger this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal