On 30th of November, CFA Russia presented me with a splendid opportunity to lunch together with Mr. Jeremy Bolland, the author of «Writing Securities Research». The main focus of the meeting was on stock exchange analyst’s operations ethics, rules, and standards. Nowadays this matter is extremely relevant for the Russian financial market. Mr. Bolland offered to review an experience of developed economies, which is essentially held as a benchmark for Russian market development. These days Russian financial market and analysis area in particular are in the process of dynamic development: a lot has been done already, but there is still a lot left to be done. This is precisely why this kind of meetings, which are based on the highlights of the international practices, are so important. In this sense, many of the addressed principles and standards are already employed in the Russian market, and in my judgment, analytical researches of leading Russian investment companies fully comply with the requirements specified.

To me the matter of insider dealing was the most interesting issue, which, by the way, was extensively discussed afterwards on the sidelines. Developed economies have already formed a strong legislative base, while in Russia the process of legislative base development has just started. In general the issue of inside is no longer as relevant for analysts in Russia, neither is the issue of choosing between integrity-based partnership with clients, and allegiance of an issuing company, but nevertheless a great majority of principles are still to be codified. In this effect, Russian analysts to a great extent rely on the concepts proposed by Mr. Bolland, which have turned into some sort of unpublicized rules for most of Russian market players. And we would of course appreciate these rules finding the widest possible application in Russia.

It would be great to have these sort of meetings with world-class professionals become a regular basis events and a tradition. These meetings facilitate the right perception and understanding of things that we still need to work on, and things we need to strive to, things that Russian market can or needs to shadow from developed economies.

by Lesina Natalya, Head of Analytical Department at “Alor”