Russian markets rise on news of discovery of coronavirus cure

MOSCOW, Feb 5 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks grew on Wednesday in line with the oil prices and other major foreign bourses on reports of discovery of a cure for the new coronavirus, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 0.54% to 3,114.25 and the RTS increased 0.86% to 1,560.48.

“Today the news appeared that a virology institute in China’s Wuhan developed a cure that fights the coronavirus successfully. The market reacted very positively to that,” Oleg Bogdanov, senior analyst at investment company QBF, said.

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that defensive precious metals producers Polymetal International and Polyus were among the loss leaders as investor worries are declining. Polymetal shrank by 0.41% to 1,002.80 rubles, and Polyus lost 0.64% to 7,481 rubles.

National flagship carrier Aeroflot outperformed the market and grew 4.93% to 117.46 rubles in reaction to a robust financial report for 2019 and thanks to the advantage of being the only Russian airline that is allowed to fly to China, Kochetkov said.

Gas giant Gazprom gained 0.89% to 232.56 rubles ignoring media reports about readiness of the U.S. lawmakers to slap additional sanctions on the Nord Stream-2 pipeline. Previous sanctions caused worry in Europe, and more sanctions may even lead to a change of paradigm in Europe’s policy towards Russia, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+0.89	232.56	14.469
Sberbank	-0.08	255.20	12.992
Surgutneftegas	+0.36	46.875	7.566
Lukoil	+0.78	6550.50	7.228
Norilsk Nickel	+2.00	21316.00	6.458

(63.4342 rubles – U.S. $1)

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