Russia stocks close mixed on cbank foreign currency deals rate hike

MOSCOW, Apr 20 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed mixed on Monday as the central bank’s decision to increase rates of all its foreign-currency repo and loan auctions prompted a downward correction of the ruble and, correspondingly, of the dollar-denominated RTS index, while the ruble-denominated MICEX index gained on the news, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 1.61% to 1,683.24 and RTS decreased 0.33% to 995.70.

“The main event of the day was the central bank’s decision to increase rates of its repo auctions by 0.5 percentage points in order to restrain growth of the Russian ruble,” Andrei Dirgin, head of Alfa-Forex’ analytic department, said.

The price for oil, the backbone of the Russian economy, gained 0.408% to U.S. $63.71 per barrel as of 6.32 p.m. Moscow time, even though the OPEC increased March output.

Finam analyst Timur Nigmatullin said that the oil prices should not decrease in the mid-term, as the number of operating drilling units in the U.S. is falling.

The Russian market was also supported by the dividend period, good macro statistics for January–March, and revaluation of ruble-denominated prices of exporting companies.

“In the latter case, it should be noted that the Oil and Gas together with the Metals and Mining industry indices are among the leaders of all Moscow Exchange’s industrial indices,” Nigmatullin added.

Fertilizer producer Acron jumped by 6.29% to 2,280 rubles on the news that it plans to pay 139 rubles per share, or a total of 5.634 billion rubles, in dividends for 2014, using undistributed net profit of previous years even after it received a 7.935 billion ruble net loss in 2014.

Multi-industry holding AFK Sistema was weaker than the market and lost 4.14% to 16.44 rubles. The company’s board of directors recommended paying 4.54 billion rubles, or 0.47 rubles per share and 9.40 rubles per global depositary receipt, in dividends for 2014, which is significantly less than 19.9 billion rubles paid in dividends for 2013.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.38	73.50	11.466
Gazprom	+3.12	153.96	6.181
Lukoil	+3.65	2670.00	3.674
Norilsk Nickel	+1.37	9590.00	2.655
Surgutneftegas prefs	+1.59	41.65	2.449

(50.5295 rubles – U.S. $1)

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