Russian stocks close mixed on ruble’s rise, oil price increase

MOSCOW, Apr 14 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks, lacking in ideas, closed mixed on Tuesday as the MICEX index was under pressure from a rising ruble’s exchange rate, while an increase in oil prices prevented a more significant downward correction of the index, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.84% to 1,647.39 and RTS rose 1.08% to 1,015.51.

“Today’s dynamics of the MICEX and the RTS indices was characterized by an empty economic background and trading rather lacking in ideas. Traditionally, the dollar-denominated index grew supported by the ruble’s strengthening,” Natalya Samoilova, head of Golden Hills-Capital’s analytic department, said.

The ruble rose by 70.4 kopecks against the U.S. dollar to 51.3260 rubles and 19.4 kopecks against the euro to 54.8560 rubles as of 6.17 p.m. Moscow time, according to the Moscow Exchange, while according to the ICE exchange the Brent oil price rose by 0.974% to U.S. $58.5 per barrel as of 6.24 p.m. Moscow time.

“Oil indicators are among the most decreasing sectorial indices. Thus, we may suppose that the main driver for the MICEX decrease is the negative revaluation of shares of exporting companies amid an ongoing rise of the ruble. But the oil… and an upcoming dividend period keep the stock market from a full-scale correction,” Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam, said.

Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which worsened its forecast for decline of the country’s gross domestic product by 0.8 percentage points to 3.8% decline in 2015, could not provide any significant negative momentum for the market.

“Many experts, including Western ones, think that an actual decline of the Russian economy will be weaker than previously expected, so we think that today’s forecast of the IMF looks like it is a bit late,” Andrei Dirgin, head of Alfa-Forex analytic department, said.

Common and preferred shares of oil company Bashneft outperformed the market gaining 0.15% to 1,974 rubles and 2.61% to 1,415 rubles, respectively, as the company managed to increase oil output by 14.4% on the year to 4.709 million tonnes in January–March.

Investors in steelmaker Severstal were displeased with the company’s January–March results and even despite Severstal raised steel output by 9% on the year to 2.959 million tonnes in the period the company’s shares decreased 2.40% to 590 rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.07	74.05	10.002
Gazprom	-2.96	144.40	5.822
Norilsk Nickel	-3.24	9520.00	3.786
Lukoil	-2.22	2559.00	3.383
Surgutneftegas prefs	-2.27	43.00	1.563

(52.4220 rubles – U.S. $1)

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