Russia ETF Takes in Cash Amid New Wave of U.S. Sanctions
Russia ETF Takes in Cash Amid New Wave of U.S. Sanctions
(Bloomberg) -- The world’s largest exchange-traded fund tracking Russian stocks took in a chunk of cash at the end of last week as the Trump administration unleashed sanctions on Russian billionaires and companies.
The VanEck Vectors Russia ETF, known by its ticker RSX, took in about $20 million last week, the first occurrence of continuous inflows for the fund since January, according to Bloomberg data. One investor traded 250,000 shares worth more than $5.6 million dollars on Friday, data shows.
The fund has over $1.8 billion in assets and its largest holding is Gazprom PJSC, whose head Alexey Miller is among the sanctioned targets. None of the newly sanctioned companies are held by RSX, which includes Sberbank of Russia, which makes up 7.7 percent, and Lukoil PJSC at 7.3 percent.
The top industry allocations are oil and gas, which correspond to almost 37 percent of the fund’s exposure; banks represent 12.1 percent and mining 10.9 percent. The fund plunged as much as 10 percent on Monday, the most intraday since December 2014.
--With assistance from Tom Lagerman (Bloomberg Global Data).
To contact the reporter on this story: Carolina Wilson in New York City at cwilson166@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Courtney Dentch at cdentch1@bloomberg.net.
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