Catastrophic drop in Russian stocks amid war with Ukraine

Russia's stock market fell 12% today.

It is seen from the results of trading at the Moscow Exchange.

The Micex index sank 10.83% at 15:51 Minsk time and the RTS Index declined 12.3% amid tensions with Ukraine.

In case of a further fall of 5% (15% down since the opening), trading is suspended for an hour. Trading will be closed until the end of the day in case of a 25% drop. The exchange already stopped trading in some stocks due to plummeted prices, Vedomosti reports.

Russian share indexes were hit on Monday by the rising geopolitical risks due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The conflict also influences other international exchanges. The Russian ruble dropped below 50 rubles per euro and 36.5 rubles per dollar in the Russian currency market, Prime reports.

Forbes writes with a link to Sberbank CIB that the rapid growth of tension between Russia and the West wasn't reflected in the current quotations. “Foreign investors own 70% of free-floating shares of Russian companies and 70% of eurobonds. The Russian stock market behavior has always depended on two key factors – oil prices and assessment of Russian risks by the West. It doesn't matter whether it is right or not, but US Secretary of State John Kerry already raised a question of imposing sanctions on Russia and commentators analyse the probability of a new cold war,” the review notes. Analysts say until the latest weekend many investors preferred to ignore the Ukrainian events taking them as a factor that doesn't influence the market.