Rebound in oil prices helps Russian stocks increase

MOSCOW, Apr 4 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew on Tuesday supported by upward dynamics of the Brent oil price, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.85% to 2,025.69 and the RTS increased 1.16% to 1,135.98.

“Trading at the local stock bourses faltered today at the start. But the morning fall was amended by purchases soon, and benchmarks started to grow, speeding up in the second half of the day. The major driver was a rebound in Brent oil prices which encountered with purchases after falling below a $53 per barrel mark,” Sergei Melnikov, a senior analyst at Global FX, said.

Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at investment company Finam, said that world markets are still under pressure from uncertainty regarding the upcoming elections in France, the Brexit procedure, and hardships of U.S. President Donald Trump with introduction of the promised economic reforms.

“Still, the negative impact on Russian papers is balanced by a noticeable improvement of the macro statistics and dividend cutoffs of the several coming months,” he said.

Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said that independent gas producer Novatek rose 3.06% to 723 rubles after the company said it bought back 55,000 common shares from March 27 through March 31. The market value of the stake stands at 48.7 million rubles. The company also said it plans to launch gas condensate production at the Yamal LNG project this year simultaneously with the first stage of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, he said.

Rosneft grew 1% to 331.70 rubles after the company said it discovered eight fields with combined reserves exceeding 5 million tonnes of oil equivalent in January–March, which is impressive considering the fact that in the whole of 2016 Rosneft discovered only 13 fields, Kovalyov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.05	163.50	3.789
Gazprom	+1.26	128.81	3.369
Lukoil	+0.78	3050.00	1.386
Rosneft	+1.00	331.70	1.350
Norilsk Nickel	+0.29	9000.00	0.948

(56.1396 rubles – U.S. $1)

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