OREANDA-NEWS. On 14 July 2009 was announced, that during the first half of 2009, the total volume of trading on the MICEX Stock Exchange amounted to 16.83 trillion rubles (509 billion US dollars). Trading in stocks accounted for 13.39 trillion rubles and trading in bonds accounted for 3.44 trillion rubles. Although this is 62% of the figure for the same period of the previous year, the results of trading in June prove that investors’ activity is increasing and the capitalization of Russia's leading issuers is growing.

At the end of June, the volume of trades in stocks (secondary trading, excluding trades concluded in the negotiated deals mode) reached a record-high figure of 1516.7 billion rubles. This is the market’s historical record, the previous maximum value being 1515.3 billion rubles (May 2008). During this period, the record-high number of trades in stocks was concluded: 11.1 million trades. On June 2, the historical maximum number of trades in stocks (823 thousand) was concluded in the MICEX Group’s stock market. At the end of June, the capitalization of the market for the stocks of Russia’s leading companies amounted to 15.53 trillion rubles (on 30.06.2009), having increased by 56.7% in the first half of the year. During this period, the best-selling stocks included shares in Gazprom (31.2% of the total volume of trading), Sberbank (19.9%), Rostelecom (19.0%), LUKoil (5.3 %), Rosneft (4.8%), Norilsk Nickel (4.3%), Surgutneftegaz (3.3%), VTB Bank (2.4%), Tatneft (2.0%) and RusGidro (1.0%).

The Russian debt market is also demonstrating positive trends. At the beginning of the year, interest rates were increasing while the volumes of placements were decreasing. However, in recent months, the market has begun to improve: interest rates are going down, while business activity in the primary market is growing.

In June, a record-high volume of corporate bonds was placed on the MICEX Stock Exchange. The volume of placements amounted to 204.8 billion rubles. The previous record (96.8 billion rubles) was set before the crisis, in July 2008. Since the beginning of 2009, 45 corporate and regional (two) bond issues have been placed. The minimum borrowing rate is 12.36% per annum. During this period, the volume of placements of corporate bonds amounted to 262.0 billion rubles (514 billion rubles for the entire 2008). A number of largest companies such as Transneft, Russian Railways, Gazprom, Lukoil and VEB placed their bonds. Today, the MICEX Stock Exchange organizes trading in 700 issues of regional and corporate bonds and commercial papers of 471 issuers with the total nominal value of 2.42 trillion rubles.

Since the beginning of the year, the main indicator of the Russian stock market, the MICEX Index, comprised of 30 stocks of Russia’s leading issuers representing key sectors of the Russian economy, has grown by 55% to 971.55 points (30.06.2009). Today, the MICEX Index is used by management companies as the underlying asset for 37 Russian index funds, the total value of assets of which is more than 3.5 billion rubles.