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Summary The Market Vectors Russia fund is poised to have two factors pushing it up starting from next year, aside from the oil & gas recovery. It is looking increasingly likely that EU-Russia relations are set to normalize next year, given many positive signals given by EU officials. Russia’s other industries, such as defense, agriculture, IT have been growing at a strong pace, which should not be under-estimated going forward. I predicted last year that 2015 will be a good entry point to buy the Market Vectors Russia ETF (NYSEARCA: RSX ). There is a good chance that I may have been right and perhaps the bottom did occur at the end of 2014 at just under $14/share, given that it is currently at over $15/share. I myself did not buy, because I thought at the time that other investments related to energy were more attractive, such as Chevron (NYSE: CVX ), Suncor (NYSE: SU ) and Shell (NYSE: RDS.A ). I have been building up positions in those stocks, in the past few months, looking to hold for the next few years. Truth is that RSX is an investment which might more or less mirror the performance of those stocks, with the added twist of the geopolitical situation in the past few years. For instance, the bottom RSX made for this year in late August coincides with the ceasefire which took effect between the Ukrainian army and the ethnic Russian rebels in the East, starting from the first of September. This led to speculations that the EU sanctions against Russia will be lifted soon, which is what gave the fund a bit of a boost. EU sanctions. A lot does depend on those sanctions being lifted. After all, Russian companies do depend on being able to access the EU debt markets to a great extent for their financing needs. Some may have hoped that the sanctions will be lifted sooner, especially after EU president Junker made a pro-Russia reconciliation speech, where he suggested that Europe needs to start thinking about ending the confrontational relationship with its Eastern neighbor. Now it looks like the sanctions might last until next year, but more and more people are grumbling about it, therefore I think it will not be much longer before the sanctions end, unless things in Ukraine take a nasty turn back towards open conflict. Even if they do turn worse again, it may no longer be seen as Russia’s doing. Europe cannot afford this extra load of hardship given its already full plate. There is the almost decade of almost zero percent average yearly growth since 2008. There is the resulting social and economic tensions, including the continued threat of defaults in the Euro-zone, and the rise of the extremist parties due to dissatisfaction with the mainstream. Now, the migration crisis, which is the greatest challenge that the EU ever faced, is leading to an actual shutdown of one of Europe’s most important institutions, namely its Shengen agreement. Within this context, removing an important impediment from realizing increased trade and other economic exchanges with the EU’s third largest trading partner is an increasingly popular concept. Oil & gas prices. While normalizing relations with the European Union is an important factor which is likely to affect the RSX fund, there is nothing more important than achieving a higher price for Russia’s dominant export, namely oil & gas. As we can see, investor sentiment is increasingly turning bearish on oil prices for the near-term, with prices threatening to break towards $30/barrel. But we should remember that there is a very important fact which makes current prices far from viable, namely the fact that many current and future projects are not even close to reaching breakeven at current prices, in fact many projects which our future medium to long-term supplies depend on are not viable at anything short of $80-100/barrel. While we are currently seeing a surplus in supply, which is pushing prices ever lower due to heavy investment during the 2010-2014 $100/barrel price plateau period, as well as almost a decade of subdued global economic growth, which has dampened demand, we should not mistake this for something it is not. It is definitely not some sort of long-term fundamental shift. We are already seeing a drop in supplies from some of the most flexible projects, namely the U.S. shale patch, where it contributed to a 500,000/barrel production decline in the U.S. so far this year from the April production peak according to the EIA weekly report. We are also seeing it in Canada, where it seems production is in decline. (click to enlarge) Source: OPEC November report. In fact, if we compare quarterly data for the year, it seems global non-OPEC production may have peaked in the first quarter of this year and may already be down by about a million barrels per day. This means that we are clearly on a path of global production decline, even if some of the headline numbers such as the 2015 average, versus the 2014 average will not show it. Source: OPEC November report. In my personal opinion, in 2016 we will see a dramatic decline in production compared with 2015, while global demand is still increasing, even if it is at a relatively slow pace. Within this context, by this time next year, we will most likely be looking at oil prices that are significantly above current levels. Russia’s other industries. While there is no debating the fact that Russia’s oil & gas industry is by far the most important factor in determining Russia’s future, we should remember that we cannot treat Russia same way as we do Saudi Arabia. Yes, Russia’s economy is contracting this year due to the drop in oil & gas prices. But, if we look at other oil exporting countries such as Canada, it also entered recession this year, even though it is nowhere near as dependent on those exports as Russia is. Russia may be very dependent on oil & gas, but far less dependent compared with many other petro-states. Russia does in fact have a relatively diverse economy. There is the defense industry which has been doing alright in terms of exports growth for over a decade now. Russia’s defense industry employs three million people and in 2014 it exported $15 billion worth of products, which is a 50% increase compared with 2010. In agriculture, Russia has in fact been helped by its counter-sanctions against the EU and the U.S., which mainly focused on food import bans. Russia is still a major net food importer, but its situation seems to be steadily improving, with production last year growing in the double digit range. Grain exports are increasing, while domestic products are capturing a larger part of the domestic market. Even as Russia is in recession this year, the government has made it a priority to increase support for agriculture by 50 billion rubles. There are other industries which are seeing growth, such as in IT , with growth in software exports in the double digits range every year for the past half decade. Russia’s auto industry is increasingly looking at increasing exports, in part spurred by the weak ruble. In effect, we are seeing to a great extent a re-balancing of the economy which we cannot expect from other petro-states such as Saudi Arabia. In this respect, Russia is a lot closer to more economically diverse countries such as Canada or Brazil, due to its more diverse nature. It is this mis-perception in regards to Russia’s economic diversity which I think makes RSX a potentially interesting play which I am looking to potentially get into possibly early next year. In addition to my expectations of the oil market turning soon, there is also the positive trend we are seeing in a number of non-commodity related industries which could in conjunctions with the expected normalization of relations with the EU provide an extra boost to Russian assets in coming years. RSX main holdings explain why fund is doing much better compared with most energy major energy investments. If we are to look at the top holdings in the RSX fund , we see that energy is indeed the most crucial part in its current and future performance. Lukoil ( OTCPK:LUKOY ), and Gazprom ( OTCPK:OGZPY ) are of course significant holdings in the fund, with 7.93%, and 7.77% respectively. And as one might expect, these stocks are down significantly year to date. In fact, most of the energy related companies, which dominate the fund are down for the year, with only a few exceptions. At the same time, there are other stocks, which are not related to energy which are mainly up for the year, including the top holding of the fund, Sberbank ( OTCPK:SBRCY ), which is up over 50% so far this year and it makes up 9% of the fund. There is also the retail stock, X5 Retail Group, which is up almost 70% for the year, which is also contributing to the overall fund being up for the year. The reason why these non-energy related stocks are mainly doing alright is because as I pointed out already, many non-energy related sectors of the Russian economy are doing alright. Because of that, Russia’s unemployment rate did not increase significantly since it entered recession, which makes it less likely for companies such as Sberbank to suffer losses, due to a deterioration of the loans in its portfolio. In fact, the unemployment rate in Russia remains near the ten year low of 4.8% achieved a year ago. It only rose relatively modestly to 5.5% since then. Because of that, there is no significant uptick in loan defaults in Russia, which is benefiting holdings such as Sberbank. It is true that other funds such as the iShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF (NYSEARCA: ERUS ) may offer a more aggressive way to play the expected rebound in energy. It gives more weight to Gazprom, Lukoil and other energy stocks compared with RSX. At the same time however, the attractive aspect of the RSX is the fact that it is more balanced, with stocks not related to energy, which will still most likely do well when energy recovers, at the same time are not likely to suffer as much if the current depressed energy price environment will last longer than most of us expect. This concept seems to be already working as we can see, given that RSX, which is heavily tied to energy is up 5% year to date, while the S&P 500 is flat for the year. With downside risk relatively limited given that energy and the Russian economy are not likely to fall much further from here and the prospect of a Russian economic rebound, driven by a recovery in energy at some point relatively soon in my opinion, I think the RSX fund has the potential to be a very strong performer starting next year and most likely will go relatively strong for some years as energy will most likely outperform. Given the fact that the world needs to stop what is seemingly a start to oil production decline gripping the world, even if there will be an economic slowdown in coming years, RSX may in fact become a star performer as investors will pile into the few investments which will not be headed down. Editor’s Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks. Scalper1 News
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