by James

Oil is down hard today, as are most risky assets. The ruble is following suit with its sharpest correction in five weeks (see Bloomberg story here). The fundamental connection is high and it would be easy to write-off the ruble’s fall as logical. But, there may be more behind it. As this chart shows, ruble [...]

by Jürgen

What happens after 2009? Will negative rates of growth continue, or will the oil sector plateau for a handful of years before securing the basis for a return to a period of growth once again? But where will the new supplies of oil and gas come from to support that growth? Finding and developing these new supplies will be costly and time consuming and may not be adequate to cover both export and domestic demands. (…) This new report examines all these issues and makes projections for the future.

by James

My optimism about Obama?s potential had been sliding rapidly, but events in Russia this week go a considerable way to reassuring that there is real talent behind his persona. To be clear, his inefficacy in the US still worries. He is giving domestic politicians far too much freedom, and they have far too many vested [...]

by James

For much of late 2008 and early 2009, market attention was on Russia’s FX reserves as the CBR spent freely to control the descent of the ruble. Thus far, my prediction that the ruble would hold its basket level of 41 is proving true, although I would concede that ultimately the jury is still out. [...]

by James

Includes: Banking sector stability, Political corporate intervention, Telenor-Alfa, Norilsk Nickel, Ukraine Gas, Market Rally Global factors have been driving equities markets for several weeks now. Russia gained stability from stabilising commodities prices, especially oil, and from the surge in hope that the US Treasury would deliver a solid financial sector rescue package. But, local developments [...]

by James

I last posted on the Russian market rout in the wake of the war with Georgia. Even as I wrote, the market was entering a new phase of its collapse. Although the international picture contributed, domestic factors had dominated the sell-off originally, bringing the key indexes down by more than 40%. The second phase of [...]

by James

The Russian equity market has dropped about 12% since Putin publicly attacked Mechel. It is down some 18% since a week earlier (when the market suddenly lost correlation to global themes, on heavy local selling ahead of the Mechel attack). The longer-term costs are more significant – all of the major brokerages have increased their [...]

by James

As recently as 1 July, MM described TNK-BP as a “canary in the mine” pointing to a possible rebound in Russia risk. Little did we realise how prescient our choice of language would be. Last week the canary took flight (TNK-BP CEO Bob Dudley left Russia, citing unprecedented harassment) and the miners immediately started falling [...]