April 9’s selloff in Russian assets shows how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recurring standoffs with the West are ruining the investment case for one of the most attractively valued markets.
The biggest loss for equities since March 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, highlights the deteriorating sentiment: bears are dominating bulls by the greatest degree in four years, according to a technical pattern called directional movement indicator (the red line in the chart below). At one point, the plunge took the benchmark MOEX Russia Index below both its 100-day and 200-day moving averages for the first time in intraday trading since February 2016.
