Non-residents and subsidiaries of foreign organizations for the incomplete two weeks of January 2022 (from January 13 to 25, while negotiations on security were underway) bought currency on the market for 164.3 billion rubles, according to data presented in the review of financial market risks prepared by the Central Bank of Russia.

This is comparable to the volume of currency purchases by non-residents on February 20-28, 2020 (amid the development of the situation with the coronavirus – 164.5 billion rubles) and less than purchases on March 2-19, 2020 (amid the deterioration of the situation with the coronavirus and the oil shock – 314.3 billion rubles).

For comparison: during the introduction of the next sanctions and worsening geopolitical situation (April 6-12, 2018) non-residents bought currency on the Russian market for 153.5 billion rubles, during the emergence of new bills on sanctions against Russia and against the background of general capital outflow from developed countries (August 7-17, 2018) the volume of currency purchases by foreign participants amounted to 99.4 billion rubles.

The Central Bank’s review also reports that non-residents sold Russian shares for 111.1 billion rubles on the stock exchange in January 2022, almost all of this volume was bought up by Russian retail investors.

Securities were also sold by non-credit financial organizations (NFOs) as part of the management of their own funds (for 38.2 billion rubles). The buyers were individuals in the amount of Br98.1 billion and NFOs within the trust management of clients’ funds in the amount of Br44.9 billion.

In December 2021, non-residents sold Russian shares for Br115.5 billion. At that time, most of this volume was also bought out by private investors.

Such behavior of foreign investors in January was influenced by the increased geopolitical risks, which also contributed to the decline in all Russian industry indices. Thus, in January, the MosBirch index fell by 6.8%, while the RTS index showed a more significant drop (by 10.1%) due to the weakening of the ruble against the US dollar by 3.6%. The indices of information technology (-20.6%) and retail (-10.8%) showed the biggest decline.