Bourses in London and New York have pulled up trading in Russian stocks and investors seeking to trade publicly listed Russian Shares. Moscow Exchange remains shut these days. But beyond these halted trading activity, Hong Kong remains open for Russian shares. Rusal, Russia’s biggest aluminum giant, is the only company stay-listed in Hong Kong. In Asia, only Hong Kong continues to trade and share for this matter.
Market observers, however, analyzed that Hong Kong’s open share to Russia reflects economics’ laissez-faire approach to trading. Laissez-faire in this case sees Hong Kong’s freedom of trading compared to other regulators. Most Russian companies suffered from halted trading. Rusal, which is both listed in Moscow and Hong Kong, plunged to 42% since the invasion.
Although most global companies and investors have suspended Russian shares and trading, it is still uncertain who is still trading Rusal. Most banks also quit acting as market makers for Russian securities, said IFR Asia. Since the conflict, daily trading peaked at HK$469.8 on March 8th, almost 344m shares traded. But it is not clear who buys the share.
Top 10 Rusal’s shareholder fund manager argued that firms had suspended trading Russian securities for both market funds and individual mandates. So, smaller investors may be the ones that shell shares. Rusal is not in the sanction list. It means that global investors remain able to trade legally and comfortably without both political, geopolitical, and market risk.
Basically Hong Kong’s choice to remain open for Russian shares is not a risky decision. Lawyers noted from Hong Kong’s listing rules that they give a lot of discretion to halt or suspend trading for exchange and securities regulators. Halting trading without request from the issuer has two indications; leaked information and unusual change of trading and shares prices.
