Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Russian Economy

 Several things to consider:

1.  The Moscow stock exchange?  Still shutdown.....going on for 8 business days now.  

2.  Russian ETFs?  Crapped up big-time.  They may have been attractive in 2021, but they are worthless at this point.  If you owned MCSI I-shares on 1 January ($10,000 of value)....it would have been worth $1,763 on 28 Feb 2022.  This morning, the $10,000 value would equal $16.75.  

What's funny about this....back on 16 October 2021...if you'd invested $10,000 back five years ago, leaving it alone and just riding out the market in Russia....it would have been worth just over $20,000 for a five year period.  October of 2021 however, was the peak....everything since then has been declined.  Millions wiped out.  

3.  Closure of the foreign exchange situation?  Yes, until September (roughly 200 days away).  So what you can still get is Rubles.  If you felt they were worthless, there's nothing much you can do unless you found some guy hanging around the street corner with gold coins to sell you for a really crappy rate of exchange.

The odds that the exchange will not open in September?  I'd give it 50-50 odds at this point.  

4.  The US non-purchase of Russian oil to affect German banks?  Well, here's the deal....the German banks had various deals with the Russian oil companies....so when they lessen on profit....the German banks are tied to the Russian decline.  

It won't be openly discussed much, but I would imagine dozens of Berlin politicians are having discussions today over a serious bank problem to erupt in the next couple of weeks.

5.  The US has said that any Chinese company (suggesting even banks) that aid Russia.....will be on some 'bad-boy' list.  

6.  L'Oreal announced business dealing halted in Russia.

7.  Russian grocery shoppers are being told to limit purchases.  Lot of empty shelf pictures appearing around the internet.  

8.  Throughout Europe, Russian products being pulled off shelves of grocery operations.  

No comments: