Economics

Battered Russian Stocks Post Best Risk-Adjusted Returns in 2016

  • Micex Index rising the most among biggest emerging markets
  • Russian equities remain the cheapest in developing nations

A worker makes adjustments to an oil pumping jack outside the village of Nikolo-Beryozovka near Neftekamsk, Russia.

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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Equity investors who have shunned Russia as tumbling oil prices and international sanctions drove wild price swings may have a good reason to take a fresh look at the cheapest stocks in developing nations.

On a risk-adjusted basis, Russian equities have risen the most this year among the top 10 markets represented in MSCI Inc.’s developing-nation stock gauge, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That performance, measured by how much of a return investors made relative to the risk they took, comes as the Micex Index trades at 5.2 times the projected earnings of its members, the lowest multiple among emerging-markets benchmarks.