September 19, 2008 By James Kimer

Russia’s Bail-out a Success, For Now

From the Financial Times:

As trading resumed after a two-day closure to halt panic selling, the rouble-denominated MICEX Index surged 28.7 per cent and the dollar-denominated RTS 22.4 per cent, its biggest one-day rise, after the government pledge to boost liquidity by more than $100bn (€70bn, £55bn). Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s finance minister, defended the support plan for the stock market as preventing the crash spreading to the rest of the economy. The market fall “created problems on the balances of enterprises, in collateral, loans and led to margin calls. It could have grown into a very big system of non-payments,” he said. (…)