Thread by @ResGloStocks

⚠️🇷🇺🧵INTERFAX: At the end of June, the Moscow Exchange plans to launch a separate trading mode for non-residents, where they will be able to sell and buy Russian securities for rubles, market sources told Interfax and the Moscow Exchange confirmed. #MOEX $GAZP $SBER #Lukoil

The ban on the sale of securities on behalf of non-residents was one of the first capital controls introduced by the Russian authorities in late February. Since then, some restrictions have been eased or lifted, but non-residents' assets in the stock market remain blocked.

"The restrictions that we have set, we are now considering within them, discussing the possibilities for non-residents to make portfolio investments in Russian securities within the framework of type "C" accounts", - the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said.

⚠️At the same time, she emphasized that there was no question of the possibility of withdrawing these investments abroad, their repatriation in the foreseeable future.

The Moscow Exchange is developing a mechanism to provide non-residents with operations permitted under the current regulation on the markets of the exchange, including using accounts of type "C". ", - explained to Interfax in the press service of the exchange.

The interlocutor of the agency on the market noted that a separate section will be designed specifically for non-residents, and they will be able to trade only with other non-residents - there will be no Russian clients of brokers there: this is done to avoid arbitrage.

"Non-residents opened accounts mainly in the largest companies, which together account for 95% of the market turnover," Kochetkov said.

He considers the launch of a separate trading mode for non-residents to be a positive step, but he fears that this will turn out to be a section of some sellers, as many investors will seek to get rid of securities of sub-sanctioned companies for compliance reasons.

“If the main market is relatively balanced, there are both sellers and buyers, then here we will get a very strange platform dominated exclusively by sellers who are in a semi-hysterical state and are ready to sell at almost any price,” Kochetkov notes.

Despite the fact that non-residents will not be able to withdraw capital in this way, according to the interviewed experts, this will allow them to at least exit the securities of sub-sanctioned companies and remain in rubles.

According to the presidential decree of March 5, it is possible to convert rubles credited to special accounts of type "C" into foreign currency only with the permission of the Russian authorities.