Page 2 - bne_newspaper_April_12_2019

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April 12, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 2
Renewed demand for OFZ treasury bills a barometer of improving sentiment towards Russian assets
for almost a quarter of the ministry's quarterly OFZ sales plan of RUB600bn and set yet another weekly record, beating the previous sale of RUB91.4bn of March 13.
The OFZ market has seen a remarkable turnaround from last year. The high yielding, low risk OFZs were a bond traders' favourite
at the start of 2018 but as sanction fears grew there was a big sell off in the bonds over the second half of the year. The share of OFZs held by foreign investors tumbled from 34% in April to end the year at 25% after bond investors sold off some RUB500bn worth of the paper. At the same yields climbed from just over 8% to touch 9% leading Russia’s finance ministry to cancel several auctions in the autumn because of lack of demand, while the ministry was unwilling to increase the yields to the level demanded by investors that would have cleared the market.
However, since the start of this year, and especially since March, the market has picked up significantly as it became clear the US Federal Reserve bank has halted its tightening policy
and may even ease US rates this year due to an economic slowdown.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reduced its projection for global growth in 2019 by 0.2 pp to 3.3% y/y on April 10, which would be the lowest growth rate since the financial crisis. The 2020 growth forecast remained at 3.6%.
“Both estimates for developed and emerging markets for 2019 were cut on the backdrop of
Russian Market Data Value
1M YTD
Equity Indices
RTSI
1,245
6%
17%
MOEX
2,551
3%
8%
MSCI EM
1,087
4%
13%
S&P
2,888
4%
16%
NASDAQ
7,947
5%
21%
DAX
11,935
3%
13%
FTSE
7,418
4%
10%
Commodities
Price, $
1M YTD
Brent
71.0
7%
31%
WTI
63.6
12%
40%
Urals
74.2
-4%
65%
Gold
1,293
0%
1%
Silver
15.0
-2%
-3%
Nickel
13,020
0%
23%
Copper
6,432
0%
8%
Aluminum
1,847
1%
-1%
FOREX
Value
Russia sectors performance % YTD
1M YTD
EUR/RUB
72.7
-2%
-8%
Russia sectors performance % YTD
Oil & Gas Utilities Financials Consumers Telecoms M&M RTS MOEX
10
16
16
16.4
21
11
9
7.6
0 5 10 15 20 25
Source: MOEX, BCS GM
source: MOEX, BCS GM
Sectors: % return YTD