Russian stocks close mixed, correcting after Monday’s sell-offs

MOSCOW, Jul 29 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market has witnessed a mixed dynamics on Tuesday with the MICEX rising due to a technical correction after an almost 2% fall on Monday, and the RTS slightly falling, while the geopolitical tensions remained, analysts said.

The MICEX grew 0.58% to 1,369.83, while the RTS fell 0.13% to 1,207.29.

“Today’s pause in falling was merely technical. The market tried to rebound, it was pushed by the recent sell-offs. Meanwhile, the remaining geopolitical tensions made bulls stand on a shaky ground,” Nord Capital analyst Vitaly Manzhos said.

Severstal led the Russian market, increasing by 3.93% to 320 rubles, as investors were hoping to get special dividends after a sale of its U.S. assets, AnkorInvest portfolio manager Sergey Vakhrameev said.

Moody's said in a report earlier that Severstal’s dividends could amount to U.S. $1.1 billion–$1.4 billion. The company will publish its financial performance report for April–June on Wednesday and will announce a decision on dividends then, Vakhrameev said.

MTS and Novatek were regaining positions after deep losses over the previous days, Vakhrameev said. MTS rose 3.38% to 269.30 rubles and Novatek increased 1.64% to 355.74 rubles.

Magnit was an outsider of the trading session, losing 1.66% to 9,450 rubles. “The company tested a 10,000-ruble notch after publishing strong performance data on July 23, but investors then started to consolidate gains,” he said.

Investors preferred assets of other emerging markets over the Russian ones as the threat of further sanctions upon Russia by the E.U. is enormous, Vladimir Vedeneyev, director of Raiffeisen Capital’s portfolio management department, said.

Russia-dedicated funds lost $172 million over the week between July 17 and July 25, which was the second biggest outflow from the start of the year, and this testified investors’ disinterest in the Russian market, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.52	73.20	14.153
Gazprom	-0.52	131.31	4.872
Sberbank prefs	-0.87	57.17	2.656
VTB	+0.55	0.04012	1.753
Lukoil	+0.92	1975.00	1.665

(35.3457 rubles – U.S. $1)

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