Russian stocks climb on Draghi’s, Yellen’s statements

MOSCOW, May 8 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market rose on Thursday after the European Central Bank kept its key interest rates unchanged and growing Asian and the U.S. floors on Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s statements, analysts said.

The MICEX increased 0.58% to 1,371.42 and RTS rose 0.41% to 1,232.78

“The main reason for optimism was a statement by ECB Chairman Mario Draghi that the ECB will soften its policy next month if the economy and inflation will continue growing slowly. It helped investors forget about the geopolitics risks for some time and start buying. He also kept the key interest rates flat at 0.25% and 0.5% respectively,” Roman Grinchenko, analyst at Investcafe, said.

The Russian stock market will be closed for the Victory Day celebration on Friday.

The U.S. future indices and Asian floors closed in green zone after Yellen said that the authorities will maintain the QE program.

“Almost all Asian floors rose yesterday after Janet Yellen told the U.S. Congress that the Fed will keep the stimulating monetary policy for the near future, because inflation lower than was targeted and unemployment is above the target. She also pointed out that there are no bubbles although the U.S. stock market is overheated,” Raiffeisen Capital’s analyst Sofya Kirsanova said.

Metal giant Norilsk Nickel rose 2% to 6,784 rubles thanks to the growing nickel prices.

Retailer Magnit was one of the growth leaders with an increase of 3.10% to 7,750 rubles after it reported a 30% increase in April revenue.

Moscow Exchange’s shares went up 4.37% to 58.03 rubles after Aberdeen Asset Management and Skagen investment funds said that they prefer buying shares of Russian companies unaffected by international sanctions, mentioning the Moscow Exchange, Magnit and Sberbank.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.38	78.80	19.652
Gazprom	+1.14	135.63	11.504
Norilsk Nickel	+2	6,784.00	2.712
VTB	+1.49	0.04222	2.627
Lukoil	+1.20	1,942.80	2.360

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