Russian stocks close mixed on confusing external background

MOSCOW, Feb 7 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed mixed on Tuesday as the external background provided the market with multi-directional and confusing signals during the day, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.37% to 2,218.77 and the RTS edged up 0.06% to 1,179.21.

“Russian stocks showed a mixed movement in the second half of the day due to a conflicting external background. On the one hand, the energy market is still correcting downwards, and the Brent oil price fell below U.S. $55.5 per barrel as a result. On the other hand, bulls were supported by the situation on European floors, where major indices were growing by about 0.6%,” Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said.

Irina Rogova, an analyst at Forex Club group of companies, said that futures for U.S., European and Asian benchmarks were growing today.

“The European markets must have believed in yesterday’s comments of the European Central Bank’s president after Germany’s week industrial output statistics. Mario Draghi’s comments were soft yesterday and signaled that the authority will continue the current monetary policy. The restrained activity of the MICEX index may also be explained by technical factors, as an interim support line lies around 2,200 of the index,” Rogova said.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that the local benchmark was also supported by suggestions of the Economic Development Ministry to compensate part of the burden of telecommunication companies under the controversial data retention law. This allowed mobile operators MTS and MegaFon to grow 1.47% to 275.90 rubles and 1.44% to 640 rubles, respectively, he said.

Shares of top bank Sberbank grew 0.35% to 173.47 rubles as the bank’s net profit doubled to 57.93 billion rubles in January from 28.3 billion rubles in the same period of 2016, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), Kochetkov said.

Uncut diamond mining giant ALROSA rose 1.33% to 105.59 rubles after it said its revenue from sales of diamonds jumped 60% on the year to $365.4 million in January, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.35	173.47	5.796
Gazprom	+0.13	148.70	2.053
Norilsk Nickel	+2.16	10136.00	1.711
Lukoil	+1.23	3379.00	1.479
Rosneft	-1.09	389.70	1.220

(58.7121 rubles – U.S. $1)

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