Middle class in Russia followed the global craze for retail investment. Then end of 2021 came. Then the 24th of February 2022
Exchanges stay locked, withdrawals in excess of 10K USD only in RUB
Did a brief analysis of what was considered by many a great resurgence of retail investment drive in Russia: buoyed by stimulus programs driving tech stocks up — as well as companies leveraging the Covid disruption.
As ecommerce and consumer finance companies alleviated the isolation through consumption — middle-class professionals became more tuned to the joys of what was seemed an unstoppable bull market: spending little time on TV streaming services and rather buying their stocks — millions of new accounts were opened during 2020–21. Together with direct brokerage accounts, a lite-version of them with tax benefits — called Individial Investment Accounts — also grew in size.
Total number of accounts (with most exhibiting holding pattern to add to the APR of their deposits) grew more than 3 times. The correction and then the 24th of February cut the future of what seemed liked emerging literate long-term retirement investment for many short.
Trades are closed until now and exacerbating the problem is the limit to receive USD from international section: the literate, professional and savvy middle class is both emotionally rattled by what they hear from their friends and social network — and financially penalised for what was hardly their choice.
