, Columnist
Russia's Insider Traders Know Putin's Plans
It's possible to predict Vladimir Putin's next moves by observing the bets Russian insiders are making on the stock market.
Follow the money.
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At first glance, President Vladimir Putin's Russia may seem like a traditional rogue dictatorship whose actions are impossible to predict. In reality, it's a crony capitalist state with relatively open markets. That means you can always know what's going to happen slightly in advance by following the financial dealings of insiders.
Two Ph.D. students at Cornell, Felipe Silva and Ekaterina Volkova, recently confirmed that after analyzing Russian stock trades ahead of Russia's annexation of Crimea. In a yet unpublished paper, they show that insiders began selling stocks while outside observers, even sophisticated ones, were still struggling to accept the possibility of an armed Russian attack on Ukraine.