iShares’ Russia Fund Closed To Trading

Friday at 4 a.m., the NYSE Arca brought trading of the iShares MSCI Russia ETF (ERUS) to a halt. The reasons cited were its exposure to the Russian market, MSCI’s removal of Russian stocks from its indexes and the closure of Russia’s stock market, according to a press release.

iShares had already halted creations for the fund as of March 1.

The $124 million VanEck Russia ETF (RSX) continues to trade; however, while ERUS holds Russian stocks, RSX mainly holds depositary receipts, which are not currently restricted from trading.

The Direxion Daily Russia Bull 2X Shares (RUSL) is set to close as announced by its issuer on Monday evening. Its last day of trading will be March 11.  

Both ERUS and RSX were much larger funds just a month ago. The former closed out January with more than $500 million in assets under management. It had less than $13 million in assets under management just days before its shutdown. Meanwhile, RSX had nearly $1.3 billion at the end of January and RUSL had roughly $56 million. The fall of all three funds has been brutally sharp due to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]

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