‘The news of JP Morgan Chase & Co’s upcoming acquisition of Bear Stearns, an investment company, was definitely last week’s greatest highlight. Bear Stearns had nearly collapsed due to liquidity problems earlier, so the urgency of the transaction resulted in investor panic that only cooled off after the U.S. Federal Reserve System made some comforting promises,’ SKB-Bank’s Trading Operations Director Evgeniy Batuev says.

‘Moreover, these events have led traders all over the world to believe that no big upheavals are to be expected in the nearest future. The Monday statistics on sales in the U.S. real estate sector, for example, gave traders hope that the world’s largest economy is not threatened by recession. As for Russia, the week tends to be good enough, even though the blue chips’ prices varied dramatically on Tuesday,’ he adds.

‘I’d like to believe the market is going to retain its current position by the end of the week or, even better, that it is going to reach the position it had a week earlier,’ Mr. Batuev notes.