The Central Bank revealed the scale of sales of Russian shares by non-residents in January

Central Bank: against the backdrop of geopolitical risks, foreigners sold Russian shares for 111 billion rubles.

In January, non-residents sold Russian shares for a total of 111.1 billion rubles, the Central Bank reported. OFZ sales by foreigners were not so significant

In January 2022, the Russian financial market was most affected by geopolitical tensions and the move to tighten monetary policy in developed countries, says in the Financial Markets Risk Review prepared by the Bank of Russia. Foreign investors sold Russian shares for a total of 111.1 billion rubles. – against 115.5 billion rubles. in December 2021. At the same time, there were 22 working days in December, and 16 in January.

The worst results in January were in the information technology sector: the index of IT companies on the Moscow Exchange lost 20.6%. Also among the market outsiders are retail (-10.8%), construction (-9.7%), banks and financial companies (-8.4%). Oil and gas companies suffered the least from sales, their indices lost 3.1% in January, follows from a review of the Bank of Russia. In general, the ruble index of the Moscow Exchange in January fell by 6.8%, the dollar index of the RTS – by 10.1%.

In general, the Russian market in January 2022 showed the worst dynamics of indicators among the markets of developing countries, follows from the data given in the review of the Bank of Russia. The yield on 10-year bonds reached 10.5% from 6% in December 2021, and the so-called five-year CDS spread on Russia, which reflects the perception of country risk by international financial markets, increased from 12 bps to 96 bps.

The behavior of foreign investors differs from previous periods of volatility, the Central Bank notes: “In January, the main outflow occurred in the stock market, at the same time, the decrease in the OFZ portfolio was smaller compared to the start of the pandemic in Russia in March 2020 or after the imposition of sanctions in April 2018 “. The share of foreign investors in OFZs fell to 18.7% in January against 19.9% ​​a month earlier. In the first month of 2022, non-residents sold government bonds for a total of 126 billion rubles, according to a review of the Central Bank. On January 27 and 28 alone, the net outflow of foreign investment from Russian sovereign debt exceeded 30 billion rubles, VTB Capital analysts previously calculated.