Moscow Exchange (MOEX), the largest exchange group in Russia, has announced that it will start trading foreign securities in US dollars from September 27. According to Reuters, the news was confirmed by Boris Blokhin, the Head of MOEX’s stock market department.

As of press time, trading is only being offered in Russian rubles. However, in July, the exchange hinted at plans to expand its number of foreign securities by offering 1,000 at the end of 2022. The company’s target is to focus on US-listed companies and firms from Hong Kong, China and some countries in Europe. Still, there is no additional information on other expectations the company has for the rest of the year.

Recently, MOEX published its trading volumes on Thursday for August 2021. The metrics revealed that total trading volumes across the exchange’s markets rose by 5.9% to RUB 79.7 trillion for the period, which is an increase compared to the figure seen in the same period last year of RUB 75.3 trillion. The major drivers of this performance were the derivatives, money and bond markets, accounting for 18.9%, 17.5%, and 15.6%, respectively.

In addition, MOEX reported that the total trading volume on equity and bond markets for August grew by 9.8% to RUB 3,844.6 billion, which is an annual increase compared to August 2020, when the figure was RUB 3,500.3 billion.

Recent International Stocks Added

At the end of May, the Russian exchange group announced that it added 20 international stocks to trading, including shares from major US-listed companies. In this instance, MOEX included shares from Western Digital, Zoom, Virgin Galactic, among others, said the press release. With the inclusion of the new portfolio of international stock products, the Moscow Exchange reached a total of 144 within its offerings.