Russian stocks close mixed as oil falls on Fed’s rate hike

MOSCOW, Dec 15 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed mixed on Thursday pressured by oil prices, which started falling late Wednesday in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s (Fed) decision to raise the key interest rate, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.37% to 2,237.23 and the RTS went down 0.94% to 1,138.07.

“The situation on the energy market, where the Brent oil price fell below U.S. $54 per barrel yesterday on the back of the U.S.’ Fed’s decision to raise the rate, after which the restoration started, was again a reason for negative dynamics (on the Russian stock market),” Finam analyst Bogdan Zvarich said.

Veles Capital analyst Yegor Dakhtler said that European floors traded with an insignificant growth on Thursday after a decline on Wednesday and the U.S. stocks also opened with a small increase on neutral labor market statistics data.  

Zvarich said the positive opening of the U.S. floors, where main indices gained around 0.5%, allowed Russian stocks to win back part of losses suffered in the first half of the day.

Hydropower giant RusHydro rose 1.97% on reports that its net profit rose 55% on the year to 37.4 billion rubles in January–September, as calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.7	174.92	12.988
Gazprom	+0.67	158.25	8.220
Lukoil	+0.94	3383.50	5.636
Norilsk Nickel	-0.74	10512.00	4.202
Rosneft	-0.65	400.45	3.637

(60.8079 rubles – U.S. $1)

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