Moscow Exchange (MOEX), the largest exchange group in Russia, announced on Wednesday that it modified trading hours for the equity markets. According to the press release, starting December 6, the equity market will open at 06:50 (Moscow time), modifying the current schedule from 09:50 to 23:40.
That said, trading within such a market will last for 17 hours. The modification is aimed to favor clients in Siberia, the Far East, and the Asia-Pacific region, which will have more trading hours at their disposal, MOEX said. “Market participants will be able to give a quicker response to changing global market dynamics and implement further trading and Arbitrage opportunities in the morning hours. From 13 October, trading members may test the morning trading on their systems,” the exchange group commented.
Also, starting from the same date, an opening auction will take place from 06:50 to 07:00 to all spot instruments available in MOEX. “The opening auction will help to generate a more representative opening price and reduce the risk of artificially inflating or undervaluing the market price,” MOEX added.
Since March 1, 2021, the Russian exchange group has had trading hours for its FX, precious metals and derivatives markets open at 07:00 and close at 23:50, all Moscow time. In addition, from September 27 after-hours trading has been made available to the bonds market.
September Metrics
Recently, MOEX revealed its trading metrics for September 2021, noting that total trading volumes across the exchange rose by 3% to RUB 89.2 trillion. The number is higher than the figure seen in the same period last year, which was RUB 86.5 trillion. Moreover, the leaders with such rising numbers were the equity market which accounted for 40%, and the money market which was 19%. Furthermore, the standardized OTC derivatives market increased 1.6 times, MOEX said, while the precious metals market soared five times.
