You ain't seen nuthin' nyet

Russia suspends trading in just about everything (FT Alphaville)

Russia is showing us what happens to entire countries when mistrust sets in.

Russia’s Micex Stock Exchange and RTS Exchange suspended trading on Wednesday for a second consecutive day

While the government insisted there was no systemic crisis

market players said margin calls forced domestic traders to liquidate positions, banks were ceasing to lend to second and third-tier companies and brokers were pulling credit lines. Meanwhile, interbank money market rates climbed to 11 per cent, their highest since a mini-banking crisis in summer 2004.

Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank, told the FT “No one knows where this could stop.”

The share trading suspension followed the steepest one-day fall in stocks in more than a decade on Tuesday

As Andrei Sharonov, managing director of Troika Dialog, the Moscow investment bank, and a former deputy economic minister, told the FT: “This is a vicious circle…It is a situation of total mistrust. The liquidity crisis is being caused by a crisis of confidence in which people are frightened to borrow and frightened to lend.”

At least those who bought Putins were doing ok.