Moscow Exchange

The Moscow Exchange is comparatively young compared to other such institutions around the world, having been formed in December 2011. At this point, the two biggest exchanges in Moscow were merged together – the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange and the Russian Trading System. This created the Moscow Exchange we know today.

Both of these organisations that combined to create the Moscow Exchange were formed in the 1990s, and both were leading Russian exchanges for more than two decades. The merger to create the Moscow Exchange was the start of Russia’s plan to make Moscow its premier international finance centre, with the exchange being rebranded in time for 2012.

As of 2013, the Exchange completed its Initial Public Offering (IPO) and raised 15 billion rubles (equating to around $500 million). At the time, this Initial Public Offering was oversubscribed by more than twice, and this shows how significant the demand was from institutional investors around the world. From November 2013, the shares were included in the MSCI Russia Index, and in 2014, the Central Bank of Russia completed the public sale of the shares. This represented a total of 12% of the exchange.

Russian Federal Law asked that the Central Bank sell its shares in the exchange by 2016 and by the end of 2018, the Moscow Exchange was offering gold futures.

There are two main indices used by the Moscow Stock Exchange to track performance:

• MOEX Russia Index
• RTS Index

Both of these Indexes are weighted by market capitalisation. These are based on the most liquid Russian stock prices of the biggest Russian issuers with economic activities related to the main sectors on the exchange.