Page 95 - RusRPTNov20

Residential real estate stocks have been a popular investment pre-crisis but the lion’s share of investment went into market leader ​PIK​ which became something of a “tourist stock” – investors that wanted exposure to Russian consumers and real estate buy this name, but ignore the others. While the stocks of the three big listed real estate companies – including ​LSR Group (LSR) and ​Etalon​ – have recovered much of the lost ground, those of PIK have done much better and the company is now returning 20% YTD, whereas the other two remain underwater compared to their January 1 prices.
There are other examples of investors quietly buying back into the previous market darlings in anticipation of a Biden victor and a return to business as usual, even if the US foreign policy becomes tougher on Russia.
The Russian market turned out to be an “ugly duckling” and in October continues to lag significantly behind others. Since the beginning of October, the S&P 500 is up 1.9%, emerging markets (MSCI EM) are up 3.3%, and the RTS is down 1.9%.
95 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ November 2020 www.intellinews.com