Russian Investor Statistics - Inflows Rise, Account Growth Accelerates

Moscow Exchange has published retail investor statistics for September. Retail inflow picked up to R35 bln ($481 mln), rising from the previous month's R28 bln and coming in line with the YTD monthly average.Inflow to local mutual funds also accelerated, rising to R27 bln from a previous R22 bln. We estimate R18 bln ($273 mln) went into equities, up from R14 bln the previous month.Given that $620 mln was placed on the market by three companies over September, altogether we can estimate that nonresident investors withdrew some $135 mln from the market in the month, likely trimming their Russia overweights as the market continued to outperform peers. (We discussed institutional positioning in further detail in a note last month.)After witnessing decelerating growth for most of this year, new brokerage accounts picked up for a second month in a row, expanding 757k for a total of 14.5 mln unique investor accounts on the Moscow Exchange. Client activity also picked up, with nearly 2.3 mln retail investors making at least one trade during the month versus 2.1 mln the month prior, reaching an all-time high.Moscow Exchange also reports the top 10 stocks in the average retail portfolio every month, and their relative weight among that top 10. September showed one sharp change, an expansion of Gazprom's weight to more than 30%. Last month's more than 25% share in Gazprom had previously been the record for the stock. The stock had of course sharply outperformed in September, rising 19% versus the RTS's 4% as global gas prices saw parabolic growth, and the limited portfolio data implies that the retail investor held or expanded their Gazprom allocation. Institutional investors were likely on the other side of any corresponding trades. While all of the rest of the top 10 saw weight declines, the most noticeable was Sber, which fell 1.8 pp to 8.9%.