The study aims to identify whether illiquidity and returns in the Russian stock and bond markets may be forecasted with the help of local macroeconomic variables, internet queries, global factors as well as the fundamental asset classes’ characteristics. To address these questions we use the correlation analysis, the VAR analysis and Granger causality tests. Despite the structural instability of the Russian financial markets, the market microstructure variables influence each other and are affected by the characteristics of other asset types. In highly volatile markets dynamic models should be applied. Stock and bond returns may be used for forecasting liquidity and volatility in the Russian market. Stock illiquidity is not useful for forecasting returns in the Russian market as opposed to the US and UK markets. In the Russian market investors rely on risk factors rather than on illiquidity measures in decision-making process. Bond maturity in the Russian market has a significant impact on the bonds’ characteristics and implicitly on switching between different asset classes similarly to the US market. Increase in the number of internet queries may serve as an indicator of higher volatility and illiquidity in the Russian stock market in the future, but Google Trends should be used only in combination with other forecasting tools such as macroeconomic measures and political situation analysis.

I argue that the bitcoins market is an example of a complex system without a stable equilibrium. The users of bitcoins fall into two broad categories: 1) Capital gain seekers: who have no functional use for the currency apart from an expectation of capital gains; 2) Functional users: who use the currency to save on transaction costs as it provides a less costly medium of exchange over traditional fiat currencies. I assume thateach category consists of mean-variance optimizers, and specify simple evolutionary dynamics for each category. I identify two simple routes to chaos in the bitcoins market. If only capital gain seekers are present, then one route to chaos is via the logistic map. If both categories of users matter then a possible route to chaos is via the delay logistic-Hénon map. A policy recommendation follows: in order to pre-empt chaos in the bitcoins market, currency exchanges should be allowed to convert bitcoins into dollars and vice versa if and only if there is an associated transaction involving buying and selling of goods or services or if the bitcoins are freshly mined.Such a regulation pre-empts chaos by reducing the impact of capital gain seekers on the virtual currency’s value.

The model of the equilibrium exchange rate of ruble is under construction on the basis of streams of the balance of payments of Russia taking into account trade conditions. Export-import transactions, factors of movement of the capital, trade condition, indexes of the internal and export prices, real gross domestic product, factors of elasticity of the foreign trade operations, decisions of microagents are used as base determinants in the model. In the process of creating the model a number of key internal dynamic functional dependencies were found that allowed to put the capital flows in the model on formal logical level, and, thus, to extend the model to the case of capital mobility. We discuss the relationship results from the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate in the framework of the author’s conceptual approach to the assessment of the equilibrium exchange rate based on international flows (IFEER). The technique of adjustment of model internal parameters is offered with a view of macroeconomic regulation of the exchange rate of ruble. Based on the modeling results we built the analysis of the dynamics of the nominal exchange rate of ruble in 2013-2015.

The object of the article is to give an overview on Islamic banks growth experience across the world from its initial stages till current situation with issues and challenges ahead. More specifically, the article focuses on Islamic banks in Russia, considering the fact that the country with over 20 million Muslims has only one bank (Badr-Forte) which offers Islamic financial services and a few institutions which provide halal investments in recent years, including Ak-Bars Bank in Tatarstan (non-Islamic Russian bank). But despite signs of growth, the country’s pool of officially registered Islamic financial institutions remains limited to two organizations in Tatarstan and two in the republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus. It is due to the Russian regulation system which is poorly suited for Islamic banks.

In this paper we focus on the benefit of effective internal controls, or more precisely, the Sarbanes- Oxley Act (SOX) and COSO model. We examine this issue in the context of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for corporate control and, consequently, how weak internal control determines the reliability of financial data. This paper examines how SOX 302, 404, 906 disclosures on the internal control environment affect the market for corporate control. Besides that, we analyzed COSO model and how the sections of these laws may be implemented in practice.