Special Extra: Obama gets Russia, Finally

It’s comforting to know that no matter the outcome in next month’s U.S. presidential election, Vladmir Putin’s Russia is in for it from the United States of America.

Special Extra: Russia’s Market, Learning to Love the Goose Egg

Learning to embrace the goose egg

It’s difficult for one picture to fully encompass the horror of life in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but these days the RTSI performance graph is doing the job.

At  11 am Moscow time on Wednesday the Russian stock markets were shut down by Kremlin order “until further notice” (it appears the markets will not open on Thursday at all).  The RTSI (shown above) was down a shocking 11.25%, closing at a horrifying 761, more than twice as much as the American market had fallen the day before, and the Oil & Gas index was down even more, nearly 12%.  The telecom index was also down double digits, while the financial index was down nearly 9%.  Mighty Gazprom was down nearly 15%, and Sberbank 16%.