Falling oil prices, US, European indices depress Russian stocks

MOSCOW, May 12 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Thursday on U.S. monetary policy uncertainty and on falling crude prices and European indices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.37% to 1,901.90 and the RTS decreased 1.19% to 915.95.

“Risky assets were put under pressure by the uncertainty concerning a future monetary policy of the U.S. Fed (Federal Reserve System) and the oil price dynamics,” Forex Club analyst Irina Rogova said.

Veles Capital analyst Alexander Kostyukov said that European indices, which followed the oil prices, also depressed the Russian stock market.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by a ruble weakening against the U.S. dollar by the closing bell.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said that precious metals producer Polymetal surged 11.85% to 736.5 rubles after one of the largest U.S. banks increased its target price. Goldman Sachs has lifted a price target for company’s shares recently.

Retailer Magnit went down 0.98% to 8,834 rubles, while the company had published a 14.67% rise in revenues in April after an increase of 24.27% in the same period of 2015, Manzhos said. Another retailer, Dixy, which fell 1.52% to 325 rubles, was depressed by the news that it will not pay dividends for 2015, according to the analyst.

Refinery Slavneft-Yanos, a unit of oil producer Slavneft, jumped 5.26% to 20 rubles per preferred share after Slavneft said its net profit calculated under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) almost quadrupled on the year to 6.5 billion rubles in January–March.

Promsvyazbank analyst Ilya Frolov said that flagship carrier Aeroflot rose 2.66% to 81 rubles because the company had published strong operating results for January–March.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.82	121.20	10.080
Gazprom	-0.26	159.03	4.242
Lukoil	+1.17	2673.50	3.762
Norilsk Nickel	+0.69	8911.00	2.159
Magnit	-0.98	8834.00	1.399

(66.2428 rubles – U.S. $1)

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