Fundamental characteristics of Russia’s equity market in 2018

In 2018, the Russian stock market held up its reputation as one of the most volatile markets in the world. In 2018, Russian companies’ stocks turned out to be instruments with highest returns, outperforming 36 world’s largest stock exchange markets, in contrast to 2017, when Russian stocks were at the bottom of the list of stocks with lowest returns. In 2018, the MOEX Russia Index (formerly the MICEX Index) picked up 12.3 percent, whereas the RTS Index lost 7.4 percent. In 2018, the MOEX Russia Index found itself in a small group of stock indices of Brazil, India and Argentina that managed to stay within a range of positive returns (see Fig. 1). While being composed of the same companies, the two of Russia’s indices differ in that the dollar-denominated RTS Index offers bigger returns than the ruble-denominated MOEX Russia Index. Therefore, when the Russian ruble depreciates the ruble-denominated returns on investment in the stocks composing the MOEX Russia Index are higher than the dollar-denominated returns on the RTS Index portfolio.