Salient to Investors:

  • Michael McFaul at Stanford University sees long-term damage to Russia from Putin’s new direction.
  • Anders Aslund at the Peterson Institute for Intl Economics sees a similar shortfall in Russia’s 2014 growth to 2013’s growth of 1.3%, and versus IMF’s 2013 forecast of 3.9%.
  • Alexei Kudrin expects Russia to post zero or negative growth for the next 2 to 3 years.
  • Charles Collyns at IIF said engagement with Ukraine has put the Russian economy on a far weaker growth path.
  • EPFR Global said global investors withdrew $850 million from Russian bond and stock funds in the year through September 24.
  • Goldman Sachs and Citigroup CEOs skipped the Petersburg Economic Forum gathering in May. Blackstone has stopped seeking investments in Russia.
  • Sergei Guriev said Putin’s dream of making Russia one of the world’s 5 biggest economies by 2020 is in ruins and predicts he will soon have to shrink spending on military and pensions as a falling oil price provides another fiscal challenge.
  • Vladimir Lukin said the US and EU must bear some responsibility for their persistent and unilateral expansion of NATO, and then the EU, towards Russia’s borders.
  • Benoit Anne at Societe Generale expects further sell-offs in ruble assets because international investors are either primarily or have decided to avoid them.

Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-29/the-cost-of-putin-s-economic-u-turn.html

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