Douglas Macgregor says ‘Russia won’ as the MOEX index surges

Russian stocks have diverged from the struggling ruble. The MOEX index, which tracks the biggest Russian companies, has surged to RUB 180, 166% above the lowest level in 2022. It has almost doubled this year, outperforming American indices like the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100.

On the other hand, the Russian ruble has crashed against key currencies like the US dollar and the euro. The USD/RUB has surged from last year’s low of 50 to above 100.

Russia-Ukraine war continues

The MOEX index has surged for three main reasons. First, some experts believe that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. In a recent interview, Douglas Macgregor argued that Russia had already won the war. He estimates that Ukraine has lost over 400k soldiers since the war started.

At the same time, he believes that Russia has the resources it needs to carry on with this war for many years to come. This is unlike Ukraine, which is relying on funds and equipment from Western countries like the US. At some point, these countries will give up if the war takes too long.

Douglas Macgregor’s statement was echoed by President Viktor Orban of Hungary who warned that Ukraine had zero chances of winning the war in an interview with Tucker Carlson. He cited the stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor is a prominent army colonel who was has served for numerous presidents. He was appointed to be the next ambassador to Germany by Donald Trump.

Russia is doing big business

The MOEX index has also surged because many Russian companies are still doing big business abroad. Oil and gas giants like Gazprom and Rosneft are still making a fortune selling their products to China and India. Most importantly, they are benefiting from the current crude oil price surges by overriding Western sanctions.

Finally, many Russian investors have no option for investing their cash abroad because of sanctions. As a result, they are returning all their funds to Russian companies. Further, there are signs that the Russian economy is doing well as the government boosts its investments in the defense sector.

HeadHunter Group is the best-performing MOEX stock in 2023 as its shares surged by more than 209%. Other top performers are companies like Globaltrans Investment, Surgut-pref, and Ros Agro are the other top performing stocks in the index.

MOEX blue chips like Rosneft, Sberbank, Lukoil, Unipro, and Aeroflot have also surged by more than 50% this year.