Rumors of Sberbank buying Yandex pull Russian stocks down

MOSCOW, Oct 19 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Friday despite a generally positive external background due to a sharp slide of one of the country’s biggest Internet companies Yandex on rumors of a possible purchase of its stake by Sberbank, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 1.42% to 2,344.79 and the RTS dropped 1.16% to 1,126.97.

“The Russian stock market kept on diving to the bottom with the MOEX Russia Index falling… to this month’s lowest. Many investors preferred to close long positions on Russian stocks ahead of a weekend,” Alpari senior analyst Roman Tkachuk said.

Yandex again was among the sharpest losers sliding 19.91% to 1,790 rubles on rumors of a possible sale of up to 30% of the company to the country’s biggest bank Sberbank. Sberbank is still under threat of U.S. sanctions which may be introduced against Russian state banks later this year.

The stock pulled Sberbank which also dropped 3.77% to 183.8 rubles, as well as other large banks including second largest lender VTB Bank and Bank Saint Petersburg, the biggest bank in Russia’s northwest, which lost 2.74% to 0.03689 rubles and 3.23% to 47.90 rubles, respectively, Tkachuk also said.

Veles Capital analyst Alexander Sidorov said that the domestic market’s sentiment contradicted the improving environment of the global market with growing Western benchmarks and stable crude prices.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’s five most active stocks on Friday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-3.77	183.8	18.187
Yandex	-19.91	1790	6.526
Gazprom	+0.71	161.32	5.084
Lukoil	-0.03	4693	3.127
Norilsk Nickel	+0.16	11378	1.605

(65.7238 rubles – U.S. $1)

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