Falling ruble, increasing oil prices support Russian stock market

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market increased on Monday on rising oil prices, the weakening ruble and favorable background, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index increased 1.40% to 3,076.26, and the RTS index rose 1.40% to 1,075.5.

“We attribute the positive dynamics to optimistic expectations for the Russian economy by the end of 2023, and to external signals about the end of the cycle of tightening of monetary policies by the world's leading central banks,” Freedom Finance Global analyst Natalya Milchakova said.

Purchases of Russian assets were supported by a rather stable situation on the currency market and rising oil prices, the analyst also said.

The news background at the beginning of the week is rather weak, but rising oil and a slight weakening of the ruble are enough to support Russian equities, Otkritie Research leading analyst for global research Andrei Kochetkov said.

“Tension on the Russian market has subsided. On Friday, the central bank raised the rate by 1 percentage point to 16%. This scenario can be called relatively positive, because investors had not rule out a more significant rate hike,” Anton Kravchenko, head of the stock managing department at managing company Pervaya, said.

The stock market was supported by growing oil and positive dynamics on global markets, the analyst added.

Shares of Sollers outperformed the market on the announcement of the start of sales of its own sport utility vehicle (SUV), Milchakova said.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’ five most active stocks on Monday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.44	269.4	12.345
Lukoil	+2.16	6702	7.51
Mechel	+2.06	295.96	4.91
Gazprom	+1.11	166.03	4.875
UWC	+9.72	35	2.944

(89.6966 rubles – U.S. $1)

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