Russian stocks continue rising as geopolitical tensions ease

MOSCOW, Feb 16 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market continued its upward movement on Wednesday as investors still priced in de-escalation of military buildup near the Ukrainian borders, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 1.28% to 3,646.41 and the RTS increased 1.77% to 1,524.51.

“The optimistic investor mood at our bourses and at the other trade floors was supported by de-escalation of tensions around the Ukrainian problem. Nevertheless, this factor is losing momentum as the dispute that caused the latest escalation of the Russia–West confrontation are still present,” Dmitry Babin, stock market expert at BCS World of Investment, said.

At the same time, the threat of rising inflation in the world is still high. The latest U.S. producer price index was higher than expected confirming the threat, but the markets ignored it because of  de-escalation, Babin said.

“The Russian indices continue pricing in geopolitical easing. The war with Russia was announced, but the country missed the show, this is why the market may reassess the geopolitical risk seeing sensibility of the Russian authorities. Also, China added some positive momentum as its inflation slowed down to 0.9% in January, while the growth of producer prices decreased to 9.1%,” Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global research at Otkritie Research, said.

The Chinese statistics outperformed expectations, which means that the Chinese authorities have some room for a stimulation maneuver, Kochetkov said.

He also said that the Financials sectorial index of the Moscow Exchange was one of the leading indices as the probability of “hellish” sanctions against the Russian banks fell. Top bank Sberbank gained 1.27% to 277.49 rubles and the country’s second largest bank VTB increased by 1.93% to 0.042695 rubles.

Independent gas producer Novatek lost 0.26% to 1,615.80 rubles on the news that it 2021 net profit soared by more than six times to 432.9 billion rubles, while its gas sales remained almost flat, Kochetkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.27	277.49	51.200
Gazprom	+0.51	335.30	23.167
Yandex	-0.04	3951.60	20.371
TCS Group	-1.71	5425.00	7.443
Lukoil	+0.21	6994.00	7.408

(76.1660 rubles – U.S. $1)

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