China’s statistics, oil price weakening depress Russian stocks

MOSCOW, Oct 19 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks fell on Monday depressed by slowing industrial production in China, oil price weakening and the ruble depreciation, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.05% to 1,716.08 and the RTS decreased 1.42% to 868.72.

“Investors seem to be wary of doing anything after China’s dubious statistics. Oil price weakening put indicators under additional pressure,” Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said.

China’s economy rose 6.9% in July–September surpassing market expectations, but its industrial growth slowed down to 5.7% against expected 6.0% depressing Asian trading floors and Russia, Vasily Tanurkov, deputy head of Veles Capital’s department for stock market analysis, said.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble weakening against the dollar.

Fertilizer producer Uralkali decreased 8.93% to 159.7 rubles after it had been stroke off from the MSCI Russia index Kovalyov said.

Non-oil exporters grew higher on the back of the low ruble and oil. Fertilizer producer PhosAgro rose 2.84% to 2,531 rubles, steel maker Severstal added 2.08% to 726.5 rubles, metals companies Novolipetsk Streel (NLMK) and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) grew 2.68% to 74.75 rubles and 1.90% to 20.809 rubles, respectively, and diamond producer ALROSA added 1.32% to 56.80 rubles, Tanurkov said.

Oil major Rosneft decreased 0.75% to 251.50 rubles and national top lender Sberbank fell 1.64% to 87.07 rubles as oil prices fell, which directly affected the ruble, Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

Below are the MICEX’ five most active stocks on Monday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.64	87.07	10.286
Gazprom	-0.52	140.27	3.897
Uralkali	-8.93	159.70	2.319
Lukoil	+0.49	2315.00	1.974
Norilsk Nickel	+1.67	9761.00	1.778

(61.3587 rubles – U.S. $1)

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