Trading on the Moscow Exchange Is Suspended for the Third Week

The Central Bank of Russia has decided to continue the suspension of the stock trading on Moscow Exchange for another week. In the latest announcement, the central bank confirmed that trading in the equity markets will be suspended from 14 March to 18 March.

However, it will allow negotiated buyback trades with settlements in rubles and activities in the Standardised OTC Derivatives Market. Further, single stock and index contracts in the derivatives markets will be available for negotiated position-closing trades.

The Russian central bank decided to temporarily close the equities markets on 25 February, just a day after the Russian military started the invasion of Ukraine. The Russian stock market already plunged at the start of the invasion but recovered a bit the following day, just before the suspension of trading.

The decision of the central bank is strategic as the equities market did not face the ramifications of the rampant economic sanctions imposed by the Western governments on Russia. In fact, the equities trading suspension came into force a day before the sanctions were imposed.

In addition, it is not clear as to how many more days the Russian central bank will impose this equities trading suspension. It highlighted that the trading schedule of the Moscow Exchange for the next week will be published on a later date.

Other Markets Are Open

But, forex and commodities instruments and mirror contracts for futures on the original sites continued to operate in their usual trading hours. “The trading sessions in the foreign exchange market, the money market and the repo market of the Moscow Exchange will open at 10:00 Moscow time,” the central bank said.

Moreover, the monetary regulator is struggling with the plunged ruble and recently decided to change the process of determining the rate of the USD-RUB pair. Furthermore, it has suspended the sale of foreign currencies until September 9.