Roundup of the Russian equity market activities
With the world and national economies seriously battered by the global financial crisis throughout 2008, it was only logic that the Russian stock exchanges, like the rest of the global bourses, ended the year on a negative note as major stock indices went down by significant values, leaving investors and brokers with only pessimistic future ahead in 2009. Thus, the RTS-1 Index, which tracks the Russian blue-chips, dipped further by 9.92% in the last week of November to close at 580.12, while the RTS-2 Index, which tracks the ‘second-tier’ equities, was also down, shedding 10.14% to peg at 554.33.
The November and December’s downward shifts in the equity values, like in most of the second half of 2008, reflected domestic and global investors’ downbeat sentiments. Leading the negative trends among corporates were Gazprom (-14.65%), LUKoil (-7.99%) and Sberbank (-6.69%), while the metals sector led the industries in their downward trends, posting -18.88%, retail sector (-14.44%), with the least losses posted by the financial sector (at -5.15%), a trend that reflected the positive impact from the state support.
Consequently, trading volume at the RTS totaled R60.1bln (or $2.2bln). Specifically, the highest turnover was recorded by Sberbank ($37.04mln., 47.75% within a wk), the growth leader was Rosinter Group ($10.00/share, +100%), while the loss leader was the PIK Group ($0.55/share, –78.0%).
Web design,