Idealess Russian stocks climb up on stable oil prices

MOSCOW, May 29 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew slightly on Monday with low trading volumes supported by stable oil prices, and the increase was restrained by a lack of any significant drivers as some major world bourses had a day off, analysts said

The MICEX rose 0.34% to 1,940.77 and the RTS increased 1.18% to 1,085.75.

“The Russian market showed an insignificant growth with low volumes of trade. Markets in China, the U.K. and the U.S were closed on Monday, which reflected in Russian assets,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

Anastasia Sosnova, a leading analyst at Bank Rossiysky Capital, said that the positive dynamics of the Russian stock market was very likely supported by the oil price with the Brent price stabilizing around the level of U.S. $52 per barrel.

“In the second half of the day, Russian stocks were almost still and idealess. The ruble-denominated MICEX index managed to stay in the green zone after morning contractions, but failed to improve the upward momentum on lack of drivers…Local indices were supported to a certain degree by mostly positive dynamics of U.S. stock index futures,” Sergei Melnikov, a senior analyst at Forex broker Global FX, said.

Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InsaForex, said that common shares of Bashneft gained only 0.03% and preferred shares lost 11.59% as the board of directors of the company recommended paying only 0.1 rubles per preferred share in dividends for 2016, and the company also said it decided to postpone the dividend payment for common shares to October–December 2017 due to a capital expenditure rise.

Kovalyov also said that the dividend payment of Russian power grid holding Rosseti for 2016 may amount to 2 billion rubles. Taking into account that the company’s shares lost 5.31% to 0.7528 rubles, investors expected a higher amount of dividends, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.99	163.90	4.678
Gazprom	+0.74	123.11	3.015
Transneft prefs	+0.03	160150.00	1.177
Surgutneftegas	+4.33	30.99	1.004
Rosneft	+1.07	307.25	1.000

(56.7560 rubles – U.S. $1)

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