Fall in Securities Markets Begins to Hit Russia

The general fall in the securities markets has already begun to affect Russia. This was announced by Andrei Nechayev, chairman of the board of directors of Rosinbank and president of Financial Coordination in Russia, live in a Moscow Echo radio broadcast. He said that 'The Russian stock market fell steadily yesterday. In particular, saleable shares in United Energy Systems of Russia, lost around 10% within a day'. He said that, despite the fact that the stock market in Russia is very 'small and timid', is not an important source of investment for Russian companies, and 'lives a fairly independent life', it is to a significant degree linked to world markets. 'So a lot will depend on whether the USA administration can rectify the situation'. In Nechayev's opinion, if nothing drastic happens, it's unlikely that the dollar will seriously fall, as the USA are taking extremely active measures.

Nevertheless, Nechayev advises people who want to exchange their savings from roubles to foreign currency to buy euros, but not to change the dollars that they've saved. 'If money is kept not 'under the mattress' but in a bank, then it's more profitable to keep them in roubles, because long-term deposits in roubles in the bank receive about 17% compared to 5% for euros and 7.8% for dollars', he said.