Russia's Top Dissident & Whistleblower - Navalny, likened to Snowden - Gets 5 Years. Russian Stocks Tank

Russian shares sank the most in more than three weeks after a court sentenced Alexey Navalny, an opposition leader and critic of President Vladimir Putin, to five years in prison.

The benchmark Micex Index (INDEXCF) reversed gains, trading down 1 percent at 1,416.89 by 12:57 p.m. in Moscow and snapping a five-day winning streak. The volume of shares traded on the Micex today was 120 percent above the 30-day average, data compiled by Bloomberg show, while 10-day price swings rose to 20.345, the most since June 27.

A judge in Kirov, 900 kilometers (560 miles) northeast of Moscow, handed down the sentence after ruling that Navalny defrauded Kirovles, a state-owned timber company, of 16 million rubles ($494,000).

Russia is ranked the most corrupt nation among the Group of 20 advanced economies in Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Navalny’s sentencing “shows once again that the Russian government is centralized and it fights the opposition,” Aleksei Belkin, who helps manage about $4.4 billion in assets as chief investment officer at Kapital Asset Management LLC in Moscow. “It reminds us about Russia’s political risks, which make the market so volatile.”

[link to www.bloomberg.com]

Last Edited by DoorBert on 07/18/2013 09:03 AM