Russian stock market faces heavy restrictions as limited trading resumes

The Russian stock market has opened for limited trading under heavy restrictions for the first time since Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Trading of a limited number of stocks, including energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, took place under curbs meant to prevent a repeat of the massive sell-off on February 24 that came in anticipation of Western economic sanctions.

The significant restrictions on trading underlined Russia’s economic isolation and the pressure on the financial system despite central bank efforts to curb market plunges.

Foreigners could not sell stocks, and traders were barred from short selling — or betting prices will fall — while the government has said it will spend 10 billion dollars on shares in coming months, a move that should support prices.

The benchmark MOEX index gained 4.4% as some companies partially recovered losses from the plunge on the day of the invasion.

Airline Aeroflot bucked the positive trend by losing 16.4% — not a surprise after the US, European Union and others banned Russian planes from their airspaces.

Russian stocks were only a small part of emerging market share indexes even before the war and only for those with a high risk tolerance, given extensive cronyism, non-transparent accounting and widespread state interference.

They lost any attraction for most foreign investors when the Moscow Exchange was dubbed “uninvestable” about a week into the war.

“The stock market is really almost a sideshow at this point,” said Chris Weafer, CEO at Macro-Advisory Ltd, a consulting firm. “It’s more a sentiment indicator because obviously companies are not raising any money on the stock market, and they won’t be able to.”

He said, however, that state-owned banks or funds may have been buying to support prices. “It does look like state-supported buying rather than any genuine interest on the part of investors,” he added.

Government efforts to stabilise stocks and the oruble that has plunged in value are a way to show that some confidence was returning and “to try to get that message across to people not to panic, that this is a temporary situation that will improve”, Mr Weafer said.

Nonetheless, he added, the Russian financial system remained in a “fragile” state.

Tim Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said reopened trading was “deeply managed” and suggested that “for those Russians with some spare cash, there is nothing much else to buy as hedge to inflation and currency collapse”.

Restrictions like shutting down and restricting the stock market are among those that Russia has taken to shore up the financial system against utter collapse, but they also close off the economy to trade and investment that could fuel growth.

Some foreign hedge funds have expressed interest in shopping for distressed assets — viable companies trading at knocked-down prices — but they have no way to take part because of the trading restrictions, Mr Weafer said.

A US official called the severely restricted trading a “charade”.

“This is not a real market and not a sustainable model, which only underscores Russia’s isolation from the global financial system,” said Daleep Singh, a deputy national security and economic adviser to President Joe Biden.