Moscow Exchange Reports Record Transactional Activity by Private Investors in February

Private investor activity on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), Russia’s largest stock market, reached an all-time high in February 2024, according to the exchange. A total of 4.1 million individuals conducted transactions on the exchange last month. During this period, they invested 74.2 billion rubles (US$820 million), an 11% increase year-on-year. The vast majority of investments were made in bonds, amounting to roughly 59.1 billion rubles.

The overall number of individuals with brokerage accounts on MOEX exceeded 30.7 million at the end of last month. They opened 54.3 million accounts.

Among the most popular securities in the portfolios of private investors were the shares of Russia’s largest lender SBER Bank (37.9%), state energy giant Gazprom (14.1%), oil major Lukoil (14.1%), tech giant Yandex (7.9%), as well as stocks of energy companies Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft, and mining majors Norilsk Nickel and Severstal.

The total trading volumes across MOEX’s markets surged to 111.4 trillion rubles in February, a weighty increase from 83.6 trillion rubles a year ago. In the foreign exchange (FX) market, which makes up a significant portion of MOEX’s activities, trading volume reached 27.7 trillion rubles against 19.4 trillion recorded in February 2023.