S&P Dow Jones Removes Russian Stocks from Benchmarks

S&P Dow jones is removing stocks listed or domiciled n Russia from its benchmark indexes effecting prior to the bell next Wednesday. Russia will no longer be classified as an merging market, and will be categorized as a stand alone group by the managers of the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Group.

In parallel de NY Stock Exchange halted trading in three Russian exchange-traded funds, Franklin FTSE Russia(FLRU), iShares MSCI Russia (ERUS) and Direxion Daily Russia Bull 2X Shares (RUSL).

iShares MSCI Russia lost 33.4% on Tuesday and 27.9% on Monday. And another exchange traded fund, VanEck Russia was down 55% over the month.

Meanwhile traders at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have jumped on the opportunity to buy distressed Russian corporate debt. Not all tarders however are so sanguine, with the possibility that further sanctions may strand assets.

“What we’re seeing is a bit of revulsion — more and more institutions are steering clear of Russia due to reputational risks and pure difficulties in clearing and executing trades,” told Sally Greig, a money manager at Baillie Gifford in Edinburgh to Bloomberg.