Here are your FOX Business Flash top headlines for March 23.
Russia reopened its stock market for an abbreviated session on Thursday nearly one month after shares plunged and the exchange was shut down following the invasion of Ukraine.
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The Russia MOEX was trading 9% higher.
There will be heavy restrictions on trading to prevent the kind of massive selloff that took place in anticipation of crushing financial and economic sanctions from Western nations. Foreign shareholders will be unable to sell shares — a restriction Russia put in place to counter Western sanctions against its financial system and the weakening ruble.
A board with the logo is on display outside the office of the Moscow Exchange in the capital city of Moscow, Russia March 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov / Reuters Photos)
The reopening of stock trading on the Moscow Exchange has little impact on investors outside Russia. Its market capitalization is a fraction of that of major Western or Asian markets.
Hundreds of U.S., European and Japanese companies have pulled out of Russia.
There have been bank runs and panic buying of sugar and other staples. The exchange rate of Russia’s ruble has tumbled.
Foreigners are barred from selling shares under rules imposed to counter Western sanctions against Russia’s weakening financial system and currency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a journalist’s question during a joint news conference with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban following their talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Photo via AP / AP Newsroom)
Trading will be allowed in 33 of the 50 companies that are part of the country’s benchmark MOEX index, including air carrier Aeroflot, state-owned gas producer Gazprom and the oil company Rosneft, according to a central bank announcement.
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Stocks last traded in Moscow on Feb. 25. A day earlier the MOEX sank 33% after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
