Russian stocks close neutral on China imports, oil price fall

MOSCOW, Apr 14 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed little changed on Tuesday as the positive influence of statistics from China was offset by a negative oil market trend, analysts said. 

The MOEX Russian Index rose 0.11% to 2,631.83, and RTS grew 0.73% to 1,133.23.

"The MOEX Russia Index and RTS tried to maintain their daily gains at the end of the trading session but retreated from the daily highs on the negative news from the oil trading floors," Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The market grew at the start of the day on a Chinese report that imports declined by only 0.9% on the year in March, while oil imports grew by almost 12%, Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said. "Anyway, we can say that the Chinese economy is returning to normal after a lengthy quarantine period," he said.

But in the middle of the session, the oil prices started to fall triggering a decrease in the oil stocks, Kochetkov said.

The Brent and WTI futures lost about 5–6% in the evening, falling below U.S. $31 and $22.50 respectively. Kozhukhova said that investors expect that the U.S. will report a strong rise in oil stocks on  Wednesday. There will also be a report of the International Energy Agency.

Kochetkov said that the market pins its hopes on improvement of the COVID-19 statistics, but corporate reports will most likely be disappointing with the net profit of the S&P 500 index companies falling by 10.2%,.

Kochetkov said that Polymetal and Polyus were the gain leaders of the Russian market as gold traded near the highs of 2012. Polymetal increased 4.42%.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’s five most active stocks on Tuesday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.45	197.37	16.028
Lukoil	-3.89	4844	10.106
Gazprom	+1.08	190.1	9.615
Norilsk Nickel	+3	20702	5.382
Polyus	+5.42	12150	4.541

(73.5245 – U.S. $1)

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