Russian stocks close mixed on falling oil prices, ruble

MOSCOW, Aug 13 (PRIME) -- Low oil prices that pushed the Russian ruble down resulted in a mixed closure of the country’s benchmarks on Thursday, analysts said

The MICEX rose 0.38% to 1,704.11 and RTS decreased 0.32% to 828.93.

“The dynamics was prompted by a rapid contraction of the Brent oil price…with a corresponding weakening of the ruble…Yesterday’s data on lower the U.S. oil reserves provided little fuel to the market, especially after the report said that the reserves fell by 1.68 million barrels instead of 2 million barrels as the market expected,” Sofya Kirsanova, analyst at Raiffeisen Capital, said.

The Brent oil price went down 1.244% to U.S. $49.05 per barrel as of 6.06 p.m. Moscow time, while the ruble fell 75 kopecks against the U.S. dollar to 64.96 as of 6.01 p.m.

“Due to the lack of strong external drivers, Russian stocks were influenced by internal ideas,” Vasily Tanurkov, deputy head of stock market analysis department at Veles Capital, said.

Retailer Dixy Group was one of the outsiders, losing 5.44% after reporting weak operating results for July. The company’s revenue increased only by 11.6% in July after a 16.7% increase in June and 20.4% in May.

Steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) looked stronger than the market and gained 2.85% after the company’s board of directors recommended paying a total of 5.6 billion rubles, or 0.93 rubles per share, in dividends for April–June.

Oil major Rosneft also rose 1.62% after a media report that India’s ONGC may spend $900 million to buy a stake in the Vankor hydrocarbon field, which was seen as positive news after a sale of 10% in the field to China’s CNPC failed.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.41	73.70	5.706
Gazprom	+0.50	143.70	3.645
Lukoil	+0.34	2548.20	2.891
Norilsk Nickel	+0.20	9870.00	2.271
Rosneft	+1.62	243.90	1.542

(65.0169 rubles – U.S. $1)

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