Russia shuts down its stock market as it all unravels for Putin

| 12:17 am EST February 28, 2022
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Earlier this evening we wondered aloud if the Russian stock market, which is scheduled to open at 1:50am Eastern Standard Time, would even end up opening. Russia’s economy and currency are in full scale collapse due to the weekend’s worth of worldwide financial crackdowns, and hackers have managed to force the Russian stock market’s website offline for the past several hours.

Now, sure enough, Russia has announced that it’s preemptively shutting down its stock market until at least 3pm Moscow time (5am Eastern Standard Time). It’s not immediately clear if this is an attempt at fending off an inevitable market crash, or because hackers have managed to take down more than just the stock market’s website, or some combination of both.

Once the Russian stock market does eventually open, whether it’s later today or later this week, it’s going to bottom out in unprecedented fashion. In fact we’re tempted to sarcastically quip that it might never reopen at all. We’re not sure if such a thing is even possible. But again, we’re in uncharted territory.