Investors paid attention to Russian securities on financial markets
According to the latest experts’ report, only in January 2021 foreign investors paid record attention to the Russian market in the last five years. This was stated in the report of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for January month. According to analysts’ calculations, over the past period non-residents of Russia have purchased shares worth over 35 billion rubles. By the way, this value exceeds all previous indicators on the volume of investment over the past five years.
As expected, such activity of foreign sponsors could not go unnoticed and already now it is possible to notice that the rouble index of the Moscow Exchange has grown by 6,4 % that has helped it to reach a historical maximum. However, the MSCI Russia dollar index is growing more positively, by 13.4%. Already now, according to experts, its value has reached the mark of “pre-sanction”.
Russian securities on financial markets: influence
According to the Central Bank’s analytics, the main sphere of foreigners’ investments was federal loan bonds. According to their calculations, in January 2021 investors’ investment increased by 55 billion rubles, which is an absolute record for the whole year of the Russian economy. It should be noted that half of the purchased bonds were bought at the traditional place – auctions, but the rest was from the secondary market, where the inflow of funds not from Russian citizens was first observed. In addition, foreign investments had a positive impact on the yield of long issues of government bonds – by 50-60 basis points. It is also worth mentioning that besides foreigners, systemically important banks were interested in Russian equities.
According to the Central Bank’s specialists, the main reason for such interest of non-residents is the new trend of purchasing risk assets. On top of that, the investors’ mood was also influenced by softened rhetoric of the US Federal Reserve, progress in trade negotiations between the US and China, as well as the growth of oil prices up to $60.
This is not the first massive inflow of foreign funds into the Russian Federation, experts say. Previously, the share of non-residents in FLB grew steadily until April 2018, at which point their number reached a record high of almost 35%. However, after their value has only been falling. Specialists believe that it was the April sanctions that scared most potential investors. After all, it was at that time that several Russian corporations were subjected to severe measures.
And there was a threat of U.S. sanctions against state-owned companies. In addition, the general instability in emerging markets also had a great impact. So, as of January 1, the share of non-residents in FLB was 24.4% (1.79 trillion rubles).
It is also worth noting that February, in turn, was marked by the fact that the Russian economy was able to boast of an increased credit rating from Moody’s. The agency admits that the ban on U.S. individuals and companies will affect not only the purchase of government bonds of Russia, but also the ownership of them.
