Global market wariness, weakening crude push Russian stocks down

MOSCOW, Sep 5 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market declined on Wednesday following global stock exchanges and crude prices, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.64% to 2,321.33 and the RTS dropped 1.23% to 1,068.88.

“The MOEX Russia Index and the RTS fastened in the negative territory at the end of the trade session because of a worsening external environment… but did not break through any important technical levels,” Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

She added that sales on the domestic market are still modest, and progress in trade negotiation between the U.S. and Canada might become a positive trigger in the next few days although an import duties dispute between the U.S. and China is still acute.

Analyst at Freedom Finance Anastasia Sosnova said that the global financial market environment still looks tense with the U.S. and European benchmarks falling on jitters over expansion of emerging markets’ problems to the rest of the world.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that the Brent crude price returned to around U.S. $77 per barrel mark after a previous hike.

Gas giant Gazprom lost 0.23% to 147.06 rubles as it released its plans to raise investment by over 200 billion rubles to 1.496 trillion rubles in 2018, and borrowings to 518 billion rubles from 417 billion rubles approved earlier.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.58	178.46	8.000
Lukoil	-1.7	4637	2.476
Gazprom	-0.23	147.06	2.345
Novatek	+1.74	1120.1	1.367
Magnit	+1.61	4110	1.309

(68.2737 rubles – U.S. $1)

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