Vladimir Putin is putting the week's political unrest behind him and, so far, traders are going along with it. This seems to be right out of the Luis Inacio Lula da Silva playbook of market-friendly personal transformation. 
Putin is promising to crack down hard on illegal protests while simultaneously distancing himself from his own United Russia party, which lost a lot of ground in Sunday's parliamentary elections. His new "All-Russia People's Front" promises to be "above all parties," giving him a base to run for president next year without what appears to be growing stink around United Russia. Two signals here. First, do not mess with Putin. Second, it was not his fault. While it is a totally different landscape, this is reminiscent of Brazilian president Lula's tactics after the 2004 Mensalao scandal, in which his own party paid off parliamentarians to ensure their votes. Lula said he knew nothing about it, no evidence ever emerged and the people believed him. Traders seem willing to go along with it in Putin's case because the RSX ( quote ) has recovered from the worst of the week's losses and is now down 4% since Friday's close.
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