With President-elect Donald Trump seemingly having a better relationship with President Vladimir Putin and Russia, this could be the perfect opportunity to invest in the country, one analyst said on CNBC's "Closing Bell" on Friday.
The Russian market has seen $451 million of stock fund inflows this past week, making up the country's biggest haul since 2011. Still, it continues to have some upside as one of the cheapest markets in the world, Firebird Managmeent co-founder Harvey Sawikin said.
"It's still very unloved and it's got a long way to go to get back to its old highs," he said. "But I would say I'm cautious — you know — some of that macro stuff, these investigations of the Russian hacking is going to come out, and there could be some bumps in the road, but the valuations are really good."
Earlier in the afternoon, President Obama held a news conference where he called Russia a smaller and weaker country, calling out the Russian economy for its lack of diverse production.
"Their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms," the outgoing president said.
One analyst agreed with Obama that Russia's bread and butter is oil and natural resources, and that's why he sees its economy stalling in the near future.
Oil prices have peaked and probably won't go much higher than they are now, Pran Tiku of Peak Financial Management said. Looking ahead, he expects the Russian economy to stall, and suggested that economic sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union are having an impact on the country's production.
Sawikin, on the other hand, doesn't think the sanctions necessarily have to go away for a company to do well. The companies under sanctions are the ones that have been performing the best this year, he said. , for example, has almost tripled this year and is still under sanctions. Sawikin said the bank told him nothing would change if the sanctions were lifted because the bank has already been repositioned "to live in a world of sanctions."