Moscow Exchange and SPB Exchange: two venues, two histories

Russia has two main exchange venues, and the difference between them was long a question of convenience before becoming a question of access.

Moscow Exchange

The country's principal venue. It concentrates trading in Russian equities, bonds, currency, precious metals and derivatives. It also calculates the index people call "the market": The MOEX Russia Index: what it measures.

The group includes not only the trading venue but the central counterparty and the central depository as well — that is, the entire cycle from order to record of ownership.

SPB Exchange

Historically specialised in trading foreign securities, giving private investors access to overseas issuers inside a rouble contour and during familiar hours.

That same specialisation turned out to be the source of its vulnerability: the chain recording rights to a foreign security runs through overseas depositories, and therefore depends on their willingness to maintain it.

What to distinguish in practice

Where a security trades, through which chain its ownership is recorded, and in which jurisdiction the last link of that chain sits. Three questions nobody usually asks until they matter.

What they share

Both venues operate under rules approved by the regulator, both publish trading parameters, and both admit securities on formal listing criteria — Listing levels: what admission to trading means.