the letters moex are pictured at the moscow exchange with the kremlin and the four seasons hotel seen in the background in moscow russia may 26 2017 reuterssegrei karpukhin moscow aug 24 reuters  russias stock market will pare some of its heavy 2022 losses by the end of the year according to a reuters poll of ten market experts having fallen sharply after moscow dispatched troops into ukraine triggering sweeping western sanctions russian stocks had been on the rise since the second quarter of 2020 and hit a record high in october 2021 before a massive selloff erased 56 of the roubledenominated market capitalisation in the first two months of 2022 by the end of this year the benchmark moex roublebased index imoex is expected to have recovered to 2500 122 above mondays close of 222811 but sharply below the 4350 predicted by the last reuters russian market poll published in december read more the moex reached a record peak of 429268 in midoctober last year this year the market landscape has changed drastically since moscow began what it calls a special military operation in ukraine on feb 24 risk aversion has soared but some fundamentals such as a strong price of oil russias main export have underpinned the market russia also banned foreign investors from trading stocks shutting off external liquidity and a surging number of domestic retail investors have become the main driving power on the market battered by unprecedented western sanctions moscow exchange moexmm russias largest bourse is now considering allowing investors from designated friendly countries that imposed no sanctions against russia to return to the market analysts warn this could hammer stocks read more the main risk for the russian stock market in the coming months is a possible return of nonresidents from friendly countries which are fewer than investors from unfriendly countries but still can begin selling shares blocked since february of this year said elena kozhukhova an analyst at brokerage veles capital forecasts for the moex index reading in late 2023 in the august reuters poll varied from 2400 to 3700 the dollarbased rts index irts was forecast to trade at 1279 points by yearend up about 9 from mondays close of 117379 gazprombank equity strategist erik depoy said chances of another major selloff were low as the russian equity market is essentially disconnected from global market sentiment with the exception of oil and metals prices assuming no other major external shocks there seem to be few downside catalysts depoy said analysts also saw some upside for the russian market in hopes relations between moscow and the west wont worsen further the impact of sanctions risks should be priced in by the yearend and some easing in geopolitical risks is likely said natalia milchakova a leading analyst at freedom finance global risks are mostly skewed to the upside as we hope that the geopolitical situation will trend towards diplomacy instead of force said otkritie investment analyst andrey kochetkov reporting and polling by andrey ostroukh editing by jan harvey