Between 7am and 2:30pm, when the US markets are closed, the trading on the exchange relies on its own pool of investors, but after that trades can be settled on the US changes if needed. Total trading volume reached approximately $206bn in 1H21, an increase of 356% from approximately $45bn in the six months ending June 30, 2020.Īlmost all of the turnover on SPB Exchange is in foreign listed stocks and as a result it works long hours to overlap with the international markets: trading is possible 19 hours a day from 7:00am in the morning to 1:45 am at night Moscow time. Trading volumes continued to rise this year even as daily life returned to normal post-COVID in Russia. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been a catalyst to growth of the business but also did not lead to a sell-off during the worst of last year’s crisis in April. In this July alone there were $31.38bn foreign stocks and depositary receipts traded on SPB Exchange against $27.25bn of stocks, depositary receipts and investment funds traded on MOEX. Last year the total volume of traded international shares on SPB Exchange was $167bn vs MOEX's reported RUB86bn ($1.17bn), according to MOEX Annual Report. The SPB Exchange has been around for more than a decade, but it has really only come into its own in the last 18 months and only just begun to earn a profit as the traded volumes took off. Inflation also fell to record lows of 2.3% in 2019, before starting to rise again more recently, but that meant the real rate of returns on bank deposits fell from whole percentage points into mere tens of basis points and Russian savers began to look around for almost the first time for a better investment that paid a bigger return. The CBR hiked rates to 17% in 2014 during an oil price shock that caused a deep devaluation in the ruble, but since then it has cut rates several times, bringing them down to 4.25% at the start of this year. The explosion of investments into equities in general, not just foreign listed shares, has been brought about by nearly seven years of consecutive rate cuts by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) that have brought interest rates down to post-Soviet record lows. There are many differences between the two exchanges, but the key one is that investors can buy these stocks on SPB Exchange using dollars, but MOEX only accepts rubles, adding another layer of FX risk to investments. Trading on SBP Exchange has ballooned in the last two years and equity daily trade volumes are now bigger than those on the better-known rival the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), which also since last summer has offered retail investors access to internationally listed stocks.
![spb russia spb russia](https://i0.wp.com/tigrest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Saint-Petersburg-Russia-in-November.jpg)
And most importantly, the St Petersburg-based SPB Exchange has built a unique system that allows punters to register an account in a minute and immediately buy and sell US, and other international stock, even when those markets are closed for trading.
![spb russia spb russia](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/97/2c/ba972cea3e95e72585e7461c78256ac4.jpg)
![spb russia spb russia](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/88/f5/d088f5538e07a94aeca37421cd66a7b9.jpg)
The financial market reforms a decade ago mean Russia’s capital markets are hooked seamlessly into the international capital markets. Russia’s leading banks have begun to focus on retail investments, made easy by the burgeoning fintech explosion where Russia is a world trendsetter.
![spb russia spb russia](http://visitrussiaspain.es/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/SPb-photo-logo2.jpg)
And tired of seeing their savings regularly hammered by the volatile ruble, investing in foreign stocks, denominated in dollars, has ballooned in the last two years.Īll this is possible thanks to a confluence of factors. Plunging interest rates at bank deposits – long the favoured store of wealth for the average person – have led to a boom in Russians investing into equities. Russia is going through a retail investment revolution.