Exchanges halt trading in multiple Russia ETFs after wild price swings

Exchanges halt trading in multiple Russia ETFs after wild price swings

Stock exchanges in the US and continental Europe have called a halt to trading in a number of Russia exchange traded funds that had continued to operate this week in an increasingly wild fashion following the closure of the Moscow bourse on Monday.

The New York Stock Exchange has stopped trading for BlackRock and Franklin Templeton’s Russia ETFs and NYSE has also imposed a regulatory halt on Direxion’s two times levered Russia Bull ETF.

Trading of BlackRock’s iShares European-listed Russia ETF, known as CSRU, has also been suspended by Deutsche Börse, Euronext and Borsa Italia. In addition, Euronext has also suspended BlackRock’s iShares MSCI Eastern Europe ETF (IEER) which has a 67 per cent weighting in Russian stocks.

The decision by multiple exchanges to impose a halt is highly unusual. ETFs have been able to continue operating in the past when problems arose in other equity markets including Greece, China and Egypt which led to sometimes lengthy suspensions in the trading of the underlying stocks.

“This is the first time that I have seen a stock exchange suspend the trading of an ETF. Investors now have no way to exit and will effectively have to wait until the trading is reinstated,” said Manooj Mistry,