Study of “Ultra-Retail” Russian Stock Market Volatility in the National Economic Security Context

The authors study the population’s involvement impact in the usage of digital technologies on its participation in stock market operations and the possible effects in the Russian stock market stability context. The study aims to assess the interaction impact of the population and digital technologies on the Russian stock market dynamics. The authors hypothesize at first that the headcount change in the Russian stock market is related to or due to the usage of digital technologies by the people. The second hypothesis is that the growing number of brokerage individual investors impacts Russian stock market volatility. The authors used statistical and econometric analysis methods to verify these hypotheses. As a result of the study, the authors revealed that a headcount change using the Internet to order financial services has a reverse impact on the dynamics of some individual investors in the Moscow Exchange trading volume. Also, the authors revealed that the number of individual investors can affect the stock market dynamics and volatility. The study implies that the spread of digital technologies leads to the rise in the population’s involvement in the stock market; there is an observation of Russian stock market volatility during the growth period of household transactions with shares of residents; the influx of individual investors to the stock exchange affects the market dynamics but is not the dominant threat to its stability.