Oil price volatility puts Russian stocks under pressure

MOSCOW, Jul 20 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks fell on Wednesday on the back of oil price volatility and a weak ruble, analysts said.

The MICEX decreased 0.04% to 1,915.09 and the RTS fell 0.64% to 946.37.

“The Russian stock market traded flat today, the situation improved by the end of the day after statistics of U.S. reserves of oil and oil products were released,” Ilya Frolov, an analyst at Promsvyazbank, said.

Raiffeisen Capital analyst Sofya Kirsanova said, “The bearish mood spread as oil prices fell.”

“We believe that prices have changed due to resumed full-scale oil production in Canada, which was suspended due to forest fires, and because there was no news concerning disruption of supplies from Nigeria and Libya,” the analyst said.

Strong U.S statistics of new housing construction, applications for unemployment benefits and sales of durable goods raised fears of the Fed’s rate rise, Kirsanova said.

The ruble depreciated against the U.S. dollar by the closing bell and technically depressed the dollar-denominated RTS.

Vitaly Manzhos, an analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said that preferred shares of oil and gas company Surgutneftegas, which fell about 22% after going ex-dividend, rebounded 2.23% to 33.02 rubles.

Aluminum giant RUSAL rose 2.48% to 231.5 rubles per Russian Depositary Receipt (RDR) on the news that a company of Russian businessman Said Kerimov wants to buy a 17.02% stake in RUSAL from Onexim Group.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that oil producer Bashneft increased 2.24% to 2,715 rubles on the news that up to 50 companies will participate in its privatization, which is likely to take place in the autumn.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.65	138.57	8.794
Gazprom	-0.16	139.26	3.326
Surgutneftegas pref	+2.23	33.02	2.292
Lukoil	+0.44	2840.50	1.611
Norilsk Nickel	-0.14	9297.00	1.511

(62.9891 rubles – U.S. $1)

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