Russians entered the stock exchange en masse – Kommersant FM

Investments of Russians on the stock exchange increased by one and a half times at the end of 2023. The volume of funds in brokerage accounts exceeded 9 billion rubles, the Central Bank said. The year turned out to be so successful that the inflow of funds, amounting to about 1.2 trillion rubles, exceeded the outflow of 2022. Newcomers also entered the exchange, the number of clients with brokerage accounts increased by 29%, now every third economically active Russian has a portfolio.

This was influenced by the lack of alternatives, noted Dimitry Rezepov, portfolio manager of General Invest. But, according to him, positive factors also played a significant role: “First of all, this is the growth of household incomes due to low unemployment. Secondly, the search for alternatives in the situation of closure of foreign sites. And thirdly, indecently low stock market valuations, decreasing uncertainty and growing real returns on instruments. It seems to me that all of these factors combined led to this influx of investment in 2023, and they are still in effect, but we are seeing some rebalancing.

If we talk about 2023, the interest was mainly in the primary stock market, where the share of individuals, for example, was 80%. In addition, the flows were driven by substitute bonds offering quasi-currency returns with minimal infrastructure risks. There has been tremendous interest in money market funds since the second half of the year.

Since the beginning of 2024, the picture has changed slightly, there is a noticeable decrease in interest in shares from private investors and growing returns on fixed income instruments. In the second half of the year, we can expect reduced interest in money market funds and perhaps modest continued growth in equities, because recent public offerings of companies indicate that there is still strong demand.”

The positive dynamics continue this year; in February, the volume of trading in shares on the stock market reached 100 billion rubles, which is 19% higher than in January. Investors are also attracted by numerous IPOs, noted Anna Kokoreva, an expert on the stock market at BCS World of Investments: “In 2023, a number of placements attractive to investors took place.

It must be said that there was interest in some papers not only from individuals, but also from legal entities. These are those who have recently located, for example, the company Astra or Henderson. The placement is promised by Rostelecom, we’ll see if there is interest in it, but we assume that there will be. Maybe some points of AFK Sistema will go for an IPO, which will probably also be very interesting for investors.”

At the beginning of March, the Moscow Exchange index exceeded 3.3 thousand points for the first time since February 2022. So far there are no fundamental factors that would limit this growth, Deputy General Director of Digital Broker Alexander Tsyganov is sure: “Most likely, this trend will continue, and in the near future we may see the Moscow Exchange index at 3.4 thousand points. The fact is that the potential is really great. The market, of course, will not grow vertically, but still the Russian market has an upward trend, perhaps even by the end of the year, if the geopolitical situation is good, we can see 4 thousand points. Therefore, there is no reason to take profits.”

In 2023, the number of unique clients of the Moscow Exchange grew by almost a third, to 30 million people.

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Ivan Koryakin