Since Election Day, stocks have been roaring in — Russia.
Russian stocks are up 16 percent since Nov. 8, based on the performance of the RSX Van Eck Vectors Russia ETF, while the other emerging markets are down 6 percent collectively, as measured by the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF EEM.
Oil’s rise above $50 has helped Russia, which depends on its energy industry to remain solvent. President-elect Donald Trump is also expected to push for better relations with Moscow, which U.S. intelligence agencies say hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s emails in an effort to throw the election toward Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin denies it.
Brent crude is up 19 percent since Election Day and was trading at just under $55 per barrel Friday.
“They’re obviously getting benefits both from the sense that the tensions with the West are going to go down and that they’re going to have more access to markets, plus the fact that oil has gone up,” said Bruce Kasman, chief global economist at JPMorgan.
“It’s a double positive for them,” he said, adding that an agreement to curtail oil output that OPEC reached this month with Russia and some other nonmember states should push crude prices higher.
The Moscow Exchange, MICEX-RTS, is up 12 percent since the election, as measured in rubles. The S&P 500 is up 5.9 percent over that time frame, and U.S. small-caps are up about 14 percent.
Russia’s economy is recovering, and oil prices should help.
“We’re forecasting 1 to 2 percent growth. I wouldn’t call that anything to get excited about, especially after they had a deep recession and now they have a modest growth path,” Kasman said.
Paul Christopher, head global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said oil is a factor in Russia’s stock market rally, but so is Trump.
“In general, it’s an expectation that Trump will be friendlier to Putin and his leadership than (President Barack) Obama has been,” said Christopher.
Christopher said he doesn’t expect sanctions on Russia to be lifted. “There could be new sanctions as a result of this hacking case,” he said.
source”cnbc”
