Russia’s ETFs continue to fall as the national stock market remains closed

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, USA, February 28, 2022.

Brendan McDermid Reuters

Russia’s ETFs continued their downturns on Tuesday as sanctions continued to pile up against Russia.

Shares of VanEck Russia ETF fell 12.2% to 70.9% below their October high of $ 33.39.

Meanwhile, the iShares MSCI Russia ETF also fell about 8%. He finished down 27.9% on Monday.

Russia’s stock market in Moscow remained closed on Tuesday. It closed on Monday, although Russian ETFs continued to trade in the United States

On Tuesday, BlackRock, which manages the iShares family of ETFs, issued a notice to investors announcing it was suspending the creation of new shares in the fund.

“The liquidity of Russian securities and their currency has declined significantly. In light of these circumstances, the iShares MSCI Russia ETF has temporarily suspended the creation of new shares until further notice,” it said.

BlackRock warns investors that ERUS may fail to meet its investment objective, may experience increased tracking error, may receive significant premiums or discounts on net asset value (NAV) and / or may have spreads between supply and demand, “wider than its historical average”, added in connection with the purchase of shares on the secondary market.

On Tuesday, Visa and Mastercard blocked “many financial institutions” in Russia from their networks in response to government sanctions against Russian entities, preventing Russians from using their credit cards.

The move comes after the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada pledged to remove selected Russian banks from SWIFT or the Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Society, separating them from much of the global financial system.