Russian stocks close higher following US market jump

MOSCOW, Dec 16 (PRIME) – Russia’s oversold stock market recovered on Thursday, as investors followed the positive trend of the U.S. market and the oil prices, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index soared by 3.55% to 3,750.36, and the RTS Index grew by 4.13% to 1,604.70.

"The domestic trading floors caught up with the global trend and coped quite well with this task: a wide range of securities are in demand. Oil also gains in price supporting the mood," Vladislav Silayev, senior trader at Alfa-Capital, said.

Dmitry Babin, expert for the stock market at BCS World of Investment, said that the U.S. market started the day with a strong rise as the market reacted to the meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed).

The Fed kept the key rate near zero but announced double acceleration of tapering of monthly debt purchases, and raised the forecast of the key rate increase. According to Babin, the news did not surprise investors.

 The Brent price grew by 0.91% to U.S. $74.55 as of 5:19 p.m., Moscow time, on the ICE Exchange.

Babin also said that the Russian central bank could signal suspension in toughening the monetary policy at a meeting on Friday, although it may still raise the key rate by 1 percentage point, as inflation continues to slow down. As a result, the stock market slightly corrected downwards from the daily peaks in the evening.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+4.15	298.55	35.940
Gazprom	+1.31	328.34	28.048
Lukoil	+2.79	6779	10.850
Yandex	+4.24	4702.8	7.544
Norilsk Nickel	-0.07	21282	7.095

(73.8510 – U.S. $1)        

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