Moscow exchange halts trading; reasons remain undisclosed

Moscow unexpectedly changed the schedule for the start of trading on the MOEX exchange, according to MOEX management. Initially, the session was to start at 10:00 AM Moscow time, reports the Russian daily "Kommersant".

According to the press release, the time for the start of trading will be announced separately. The reasons for this decision were not provided.

Typically, the main trading session on the Moscow exchange takes place between 10:00 AM and 6:39 PM, with the stipulation that the opening auction takes place from 9:50 AM to 9:59 AM, and the closing auction from 6:40 PM to 6:50 PM.

As "Kommersant" recalled, this isn't the first time the Moscow exchange has suspended operations. On August 14, the exchange reported suspended transactions due to software issues. At that time, as explained, most

The Moscow Exchange has been operating in its current form since December 19, 2011. It was created from the merger of the two largest exchanges at the time, namely the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and the Russian Trading System (RTS). Since 2012, it has been operating as the Moscow Exchange (MOEX).

The MICEX exchange was created in 1992, and before the merger and creation of the Moscow Exchange, about 550 institutions were its participants, generating a total turnover of over 20 trillion rubles (over 90 percent of total trading turnover in the Russian financial market). On the other hand, RTS was an exchange that dominated the trading of derivatives.

MOEX offers a very wide range of financial instruments, and many of them are not traditionally found in the stock market. The currency and money markets generate the largest turnover in the entire MOEX turnover structure (about 40 percent each), while derivatives account for about 15 percent, and stocks and bonds for about 3 percent.

How does it compare to other global exchanges? According to 2016 data, it was the second largest exchange in terms of trading volume in debt instruments and the third largest in trading volume in derivatives.

MOEX includes shares of many of Russia's largest companies, including Gazprom (a leading Russian state-owned company and the largest natural gas extractor in the world), Sberbank (the largest Russian bank), Rosneft (the largest oil company in Russia), and Lukoil (the second-largest Russian oil company).