Russian stocks close higher amid stronger ruble, unstable oil

MOSCOW, Mar 20 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed higher on Monday supported by a stronger ruble and ignoring reduction of oil prices during almost the entire trading day, analysts said.

The MICEX grew 0.28% to 2,042.72 and the RTS increased 0.86% to 1,121.40.

“On Monday, Russian indices won back the morning’s decline by the evening and even managed to grow slightly,” Forex Club analyst Irina Rogova said.

“The situation is mixed. On the one hand, not very aggressive comments by representatives of the U.S. Federal Reserve last week gave a break to the market. A rate hike should not be expected at least by June. This is a positive factor for risky assets.”

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov comment that the ruble is currently 10–12% stronger than its fundamental value was moderately positive for Russian exporters.

On the other hand, oil prices are falling, she said.

Ilya Frolov, a senior capital market analyst at Promsvyazbank, said “the Russian stock market consolidated around a 200-day average on the MICEX index on Monday demonstrating no distinct mood due to mixed dynamics on foreign markets and local correction of oil prices.”

The dollar-denominated RTS index’s growth was supported by the strengthened ruble, he said.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that international rating agency S&P’s recent decision to improve its outlook on Russia’s sovereign rating, currently at BB+, to positive from stable, was a positive event.

Russia’s industrial production fell 2.7% on the year in February, which is impeding growth of the Russian stock market, analysts said.

Power utilities were among growth leaders, with Territorial Generating Company-1 (TGC-1) jumping 10.65%, Unipro adding 5.98%, Wholesale Generating Company-2 (WGC-2) growing 3.33%, and RusHydro adding 1.59%.

“It is quite obvious that the power sector showed the worst dynamics during correction of previous weeks. Correspondingly, a rebound in these shares is the most significant,” Kochetkov said.

Metals and oil producers were quite weak due to quite a strong ruble and reduction of oil prices, Kochetkov said.

Multi-industry holding Sistema, which said it can hold an initial public offering (IPO) of development business in 2018–2019, fell 2.55%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.64	163.80	6.757
Gazprom	-0.12	128.79	3.913
Lukoil	-1.2	3092.50	1.974
Norilsk Nickel	-1.72	9011.00	1.779
Rosneft	-1.05	311.15	1.765

(57.9344 rubles – U.S. $1)

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