Possible oil price fall, weak ruble, China depress Russian stocks

MOSCOW, Oct 21 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Wednesday pummeled by fears of a further fall in oil prices, ruble depreciation and weak Chinese indices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.74% to 1,709.94 and the RTS decreased 2.13% to 856.88.

“Today the Russian stock market showed negative dynamics that was majorly caused by fears that oil prices will fall in the wake of the OPEC meeting and statistics on U.S. oil reserves,” Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said.

The Brent price weakened to U.S. $48 per barrel by the end of the trading session.

The fall of Chinese stocks also put the Russian stock market under pressure, Vasily Tanurkov, deputy head of Veles Capital’s department for stock market research, said. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index decreased 3.32%.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble weakening.

Air carrier Transaero rose 186.76% to 19.5 rubles because Vladislav Filev, a co-owner of S7 Group, signed an agreement late Tuesday with Transaero’s largest shareholder Alexander Pleshakov to buy no less than 51% in the troubled airline, Kovalyov said.

Flagship carrier Aeroflot fell 3.06% to 47.8 rubles in correction. The company had been expected to bail out Transaero and surged after the deal fell through, Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

Diamond mining giant ALROSA fell 1.93% to 54.92 rubles after the company said its revenue fell to U.S. $2.7 billion in January–September from $3.7 billion in the same period of 2014, Manzhos said.

Power utility Russian Grids rose 9.56% to 0.464 rubles after a meeting of company’s representatives with Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian, Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at Finam, said.

Norilsk Nickel fell 2.77% to 9,390 rubles after International Nickel Study Group (INGS) released statistics on excessive global supply of refined nickel in August, Tanurkov said.

National top lender Sberbank decreased 1.35% to 6.95 rubles on the back of the ruble depreciation, Zvarich said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.35	86.95	8.597
Gazprom	-0.65	139.49	4.521
Norilsk Nickel	-2.77	9390.00	2.571
Lukoil	-0.94	2310.90	2.050
Surgutneftegas pref	-0.11	42.005	1.481

(62.1620 rubles – U.S. $1)

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