How to invest in the Russian oil market?
The Russian ETFs may be broad, but a quick glance at ERUS and RBL's sector breakdown shows they're 45% and 47% energy sector, and their top holding is Gazprom comprising 9% and 14% of each ETF respectively, with plenty more oil and gas companies in their top 10 too.  A harder question would be how to invest in Russia and avoid oil I think (and even then, the economy is thoroughly bound up in it). To rework a meme... In Soviet Russia, oil invest YOU!
"Several options are available. She may ask the US bank to issue a debit card (VISA most probably) to her account, and mail this card to Russia. I think this can be done without much problems, though sending anything by mail may be unreliable. After this she just withdraws the money from local ATM. Some withdrawal fee may apply, which may be rather big if the sum of money is big. In big banks (Alfa-bank, Citibank Russia, etc.) are ATMs that allow you to withdraw dollars, and it is better to use one of them to avoid unfavorable exchange rate. She may ask the US bank to transfer the money to her Russian account. I assume the currency on the US bank account is US Dollars. She needs an US dollar account in any Russian bank (this is no problem at all).  She should find out from that bank the transfer parameters (реквизиты) for transfering US dollars to her account. This should include, among other info, a ""Bank correspondent"", and a SWIFT code (or may be two SWIFT codes). After this, she should contact her US bank and find out how can she request the money to be transferred to her Russian bank, providing these transfer parameters. I can think of two problems that may be here. First, the bank may refuse to transfer money without her herself coming to the bank to confirm her identity. (How do they know that a person writing or calling them is she indeed?) However, I guess there should be some workaround for this. Second, with current US sanctions against Russia, the bank may just refuse the transfer or will have do some additional investigations. However, I have heard that bank transfers from US to private persons to Russia are not blocked. Probably it is good to find this out in advance. In addition, the US bank will most probably charge some standard fee for foreign transfer. After this, she should wait for a couple of days, maybe up to week for the money to appear on Russian account. I have done this once some four years ago, and had no problems, though at that time I was in the US, so I just came to the bank myself. The bank employee to whom I talked obviously was unsure whether the transfer parameters were enough (obviously this was a very unusual situation for her), but she took the information from me, and I guess just passed it on to someone more knowledgable. The fee was something about $40. Another option that I might think of is her US bank issuing and mailing her a check for the whole sum, and she trying to cash it here in Russia. This is possible, but very few banks do cash checks here (Citibank Russia is among those that do). The bank will also charge a fee, and it will be comparable to transfer fee. Plus mailing anything is not quite reliable here. She would also have to consider whether she need to pay Russian taxes on this sum. If the sum is big and passes through a bank, I guess Russian tax police may find this out through and question her. If it is withdrawn from a VISA card, I think it will not be noticed, but even in this case she might be required to file a tax herself." "In layman's terms, oil on the commodities market has a ""spot price"" and a ""future price"". The spot price is what the last guy paid to buy a barrel of oil right now (and thus a pretty good indicator of what you'll have to pay). The futures price is what the last guy paid for a ""futures contract"", where they agreed to buy a barrel of oil for $X at some point in the future. Futures contracts are a form of hedging; a futures contract is usually sold at a price somewhere between the current spot price and the true expected future spot price; the buyer saves money versus paying the spot price, while the seller still makes a profit. But, the buyer of a futures contract is basically betting that the spot price as of delivery will be higher, while the seller is betting it will be lower. Futures contracts are available for a wide variety of acceptable future dates, and form a curve when plotted on a graph that will trend in one direction or the other. Now, as Chad said, oil companies basically get their cut no matter what. Oil stocks are generally a good long-term bet. As far as the best short-term time to buy in to an oil stock, look for very short windows when the spot and near-future price of gasoline is trending downward but oil is still on the uptick. During those times, the oil companies are paying their existing (high) contracts for oil, but when the spot price is low it affects futures prices, which will affect the oil companies' margins. Day traders will see that, squawk ""the sky is falling"" and sell off, driving the price down temporarily. That's when you buy in. Pretty much the only other time an oil stock is a guaranteed win is when the entire market takes a swan dive and then bottoms out. Oil has such a built-in demand, for the foreseeable future, that regardless of how bad it gets you WILL make money on an oil stock. So, when the entire market's in a panic and everyone's heading for gold, T-debt etc, buy the major oil stocks across the spectrum. Even if one stock tanks, chances are really good that another company will see that and offer a buyout, jacking the bought company's stock (which you then sell and reinvest the cash into the buying company, which will have taken a hit on the news due to the huge drop in working capital). Of course, the one thing to watch for in the headlines is any news that renewables have become much more attractive than oil. You wait; in the next few decades some enterprising individual will invent a super-efficient solar cell that provides all the power a real, practical car will ever need, and that is simultaneously integrated into wind farms making oil/gas plants passe. When that happens oil will be a thing of the past." Agreed, it'll be faster.  Let's do a little math.  Tesla is trying to hit 500k units in 2018.  They want 1m in 2020.  If Tesla can do 1m in 2020, how many EVs can *ALL* other western auto manufacturers build in 2020 (GM + Nissan + VW + Daimler + etc)?  I'd take a swing at 2-3m.  What about Chinese auto manufacturers?  Probably 3m more, since EVs are a focus there?  So if you count that up, it's 7-8m EVs in 2020, which is 10% of worldwide new car sales.  This can all be accomplished in the $35k+ market.  This also provides the volume to drive down battery and electronics costs to hit $30k and then $25k price points later in the 2020's.  So if we're at 10% by 2020, I'd be shocked if we didn't have 50-75% EVs of new car sales by 2030.  20-50% growth over 10 years adds up quickly.  The oil price crash of 2014 was caused by a 2% imbalance between supply and demand.  So this predicts crashes in the price of oil and oil company stocks in the early 2020's.  There's likely also political unrest in oil producing countries, as their economies start having revenue shortfalls.  Given the friendliness of EVs to demand response, I'd think we'd just keep building intermittent renewables.  When the wind blows and sun shines, EVs charge (and turn off otherwise)  This will increase electricity demand, but put pressure on expensive and dirty coal and natural gas.  All of this drives down the cost of electric driving, and CO2 emissions. There are those who would suggest that due to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stocks are always fairly valued. Consider, if non-professional posters on SE (here) had a method that worked beyond random chance, everyone seeking such a method would soon know it. If everyone used that method, it would lose its advantage. In theory, this is how stocks' values remain rational.  That said, Williams %R is one such indicator. It can be seen in action on Yahoo finance -  In the end, I find such indicators far less useful than the news itself. BP oil spill - Did anyone believe that such a huge oil company wouldn't recover from that disaster? It recovered by nearly doubling from its bottom after that news. A chart of NFLX (Netflix) offers a similar news disaster, and recovery.  Both of these examples are not quantifiable, in my opinion, just gut reactions. A quick look at the company and answer to one question - Do I feel this company will recover? To be candid - in the 08/09 crash, I felt that way about Ford and GM. Ford returned 10X from the bottom, GM went through bankruptcy. That observation suggests another question, i.e. where is the line drawn between 'investing' and 'gambling'? My answer is that buying one stock hoping for its recovery is gambling. Being able to do this for 5-10 stocks, or one every few months, is investing. "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.dawn.com/news/1361897/saudi-arabia-to-buy-russian-s-400-defence-systems-other-arms) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Saudi Arabia signed on Thursday preliminary agreements to buy S-400 air defence systems and receive &amp;quot;Cutting edge technologies&amp;quot; from Russia during King Salman&amp;#039;s landmark visit to Moscow, the Saudi military industries firm said.  &gt; Under the agreements, Saudi Arabia is set to buy S-400 air defence systems, Kornet anti-tank guided missile systems and multiple rocket launchers.  &gt; &amp;#039;Positive cooperation&amp;#039; Citing Russia&amp;#039;s energy minister Alexander Novak, the Financial Times reported that Russia and Saudi Arabia were expected to sign deals worth over $3 billion, including a $1bn energy investment fund and a $1.1bn agreement for Russia&amp;#039;s petrochemicals giant Sibur to build a plant in Saudi Arabia.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/74h8c5/saudi_arabia_to_buy_russian_s400_defence_systems/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~222658 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Saudi**^#1 **Russia**^#2 **agreement**^#3 **Salman**^#4 **Arabia**^#5" Inflation is already impacting hard to reach places: Sakhalin, Yakutsk, and Kaliningrad (Russia's small enclave in the middle of Europe). While major metropolitan areas can easily deflect inflation, better distribution networks, major distributors, faster access to bureaucratic machinary, isolated regions are already fealing the impact of the sanctions. You can buy the exchange traded fund ETFS WTI Crude Oil (CRUD), amongst other ETFS products. http://funds.ft.com/uk/Tearsheet/Summary?s=CRUD:LSE:USD Note these funds do not 'jump' when the crude oil futures contracts are in contango (e.g. June contract is priced higher than May) and the futures roll-over, as they do monthly.  When this happens the EFTS continues with no movement.  Currently May is $52.85 and June is $54.15 (so in contango).  LSE:CRUD is $13.40 and if the crude oil futures rolled-over it would carry straight on at that value.  For this reason one should be cautious buying and holding LSE:CRUD longterm. This is becoming a reality as Saudi Arabia moves closer to Russia. It will be interesting to see what happens once the Saudis start to divest in the US Dollar, from what I hear, they hold shit loads in the back ground.  I don't think the world is falling for the Fed Unwind, usually the Fed buys up the US Treasuries to keep the yields low, who is going to buy the Feds shit to keep up demand?