Translated material
“Caution is not our strong point”
High inflation and the stock market collapse in February did not dampen investor interest
For the second month in a row, bank deposits in foreign and domestic currencies show negative returns due to high inflation. According to the Center for Macroeconomic Research (CMER) of the BDO Unicon company, in February deposits in euros turned out to be the least unprofitable. Mutual funds also did not perform well for their owners due to the stock market decline in late February. However, as experts note, investor activity should not decrease in the long term.According to official statistics from Rosstat, inflation in Russia in February amounted to 1.1%, and since the beginning of the year - 2.8%. Thus, the inflation rate last month turned out to be slightly higher than the Ministry of Economic Development predicted (0.9%). A month ago, many experts noted that high inflation is seasonal, so the trend of unprofitable deposits should not be long-term. Meanwhile, according to a study by BDO Unicon, deposits in rubles, dollars and euros, regardless of the investment period, showed negative real ruble returns in February. “Thanks to the strengthening of the euro against the ruble, deposits in this currency turned out to be the least unprofitable: in February, depending on the terms of investment, their purchasing power decreased by 0.19-0.44%,” note the authors of the study. The real yield on ruble deposits decreased by 0.71--0.3%, and on dollar deposits fell by 2.19--1.93%. “The purchasing power of cash savings in dollars and euros for the month decreased by 2.48 and 0.72%, respectively, which looks like a tradition,” note BDO Unicon experts. The only difference is that in January, dollars fell in price by 0.92%, and the euro by 2.54%.
The correction in the stock market at the end of February again prevented mutual funds from showing good results. The main pressure was felt by funds working with oil and telecommunications securities, and the exception was again mutual funds investing in shares of companies in the electricity sector. At the end of February, the real return on mixed investment funds ranged from minus 6.82 to 0.88%, stock funds - from minus 9.85 to 22.35%, bond funds - from minus 3.41 to 0.39%.
Investors who chose to transfer their funds into gold during this turbulent period were rewarded: a 3.2% rise in gold prices in February allowed unallocated metal accounts to show a real ruble yield of about 2.48%.
Investments in real estate turned out to be not particularly effective in February (as well as in January). “The actual cessation of growth in prices for residential real estate in Moscow against the backdrop of a depreciation of the dollar against the ruble and high inflation caused a decrease in real ruble returns on real estate investments for the month by 2.04%,” the study notes.
Experts still see little cause for concern. “Serious conclusions can only be drawn over a period of time starting from six months,” says Andrey Zokin, chief investment director at Gazprombank - Asset Management. However, the financier admits that due to investors who are not very well aware of the essence of the market, some outflow of investments may occur in the short term.
However, as Anton Kuzin, an expert analyst at the National League of Managers, notes, “practice shows that caution is not our strong suit”: “At the end of February, there were plenty of people willing to buy when the market failed: the net attraction of shares to open mutual funds almost reached 600 million rubles. , he points out. “Against the backdrop of the Chinese crisis, demand for conservative instruments—bond funds—has also returned.”
“The rapid growth of global liquidity, price dynamics in commodity markets and other macroeconomic factors indicate that investors will switch to debt instruments from equity ones,” Mr. Zokin is confident.