US calls the reopening of the Moscow Stock Exchange a “farce”

Washington, 24 Mar The US Government called this Thursday a “farce” the partial reopening of the Moscow Stock Exchange, after almost a month of suspension decreed by the Central Bank due to the sanctions imposed by the West for the Russian military offensive in Ukraine. “What we are seeing is a farce, a Potemkin market opening,” White House Assistant National Security Advisor on International Economy Daleep Singh said in a statement. “Russia has made it clear that it will use government resources to artificially inflate the value of companies that are being listed. This is not a real market or a sustainable model, and all it does is reflect Russia's isolation in the international financial system,” he added. The Moscow Stock Exchange closed today with a 4.37% rise in the partial reopening of the listing of a limited number of securities in the MOEX index. Among the 33 securities that were traded today for just four hours, the increases of the chemical company PhosAgro (26.62 per cent), the oil company Tatneft (20.11 per cent) and the largest independent producer of natural gas in the country, Novatek (18.48 per cent), stand out. The Central Bank of Russia (BCR) banned speculative operations such as short sales in the return of the most liquid values to the parquet. MOEX's last trading day was Friday, February 25, and the index has therefore remained closed since February 28, four days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. On that day, Russia dawned already knowing that the European Union (EU), the U.S. The US, Canada and other partners would exclude some Russian banks from the international interbank communication system SWIFT, an unprecedented blow to isolate the country from the global financial system. Since then, only segments allowed by the BCR, such as direct orders with settlements in rubles, derivatives (except in the currency pairs section), precious metals and some contracts for futures on closing positions, among others, have been traded on the Moscow MOEX in Moscow.