Positive background, rising Asian floors push Russian stocks up

MOSCOW, Sep 9 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks edged up on Wednesday following a general upbeat background of international bourses after Japan and China announced new measures to support local economies, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.48% to 1,722.43 and RTS increased 0.34% to 796.69.

“On Wednesday, the Russian market grew thanks to optimism of world stock floors…Statements of Japanese and Chinese authorities announcing support measures for their economies became the reason for the bullish mood,” Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at Raiffeisen Capital, said.

The upbeat mood following the announcements neutralized the effect of an oil price fall by over one percent.

“On the one hand, our national currency does not look overpriced taking the ruble-denominated oil’s price, as current levels are significantly higher than the 3,000 rubles per barrel, on which the budget’s baseline scenario is based,” Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at Finam, said.

“On the other hand, the ruble is supported by the latest consensus forecast complied by Reuters which says that Russia’s central bank will not decrease its key rate at the next meeting due to instability of the financial market.”

Retailer Magnit looked weaker than the market and lost 1.94% to 11,763 rubles as the company’s revenue rose 20.76% on the year in August, which indicates a slowdown taking into account that in January–August the company’s revenue increased 27.98%.

National flag carrier Aeroflot grew 4.36% to 34.97 rubles in a rebound after a slump. The company’s shares lost over 15% in the previous six days on the news of an acquisition of 75% plus one share in troubled airline Transaero.

Common and preferred shares of metals and mining group Mechel grew 1.29% to 73.30 rubles and 0.45% to 47.01 rubles, respectively, as the company signed a restructuring of 70 billion rubles of debts to VTB Bank. Now, Mechel has only Sberbank left of its main creditors to sign a restructuring deal with, as it has already reached a similar deal with Gazprombank.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.33	74.65	6.455
Norilsk Nickel	+3.28	11099.00	3.175
Gazprom	+0.71	144.22	3.061
Lukoil	+1.59	2501.20	2.214
Magnit	-1.94	11763.00	1.833

(68.7932 rubles – U.S. $1)

End