Russian stocks decline on fears of new U.S., E.U. sanctions

MOSCOW, Jul 25 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell on Tuesday ahead of a U.S. Congress vote on new sanctions despite positive crude price dynamics, analysts said.

The MICEX dropped 0.42% to 1,923.73 and the RTS sagged 0.36% to 1,010.06.

“Sellers have occupied the Russian stock market in spite of external optimism and growing oil prices. The benchmarks tried to follow the crude factor at first, but the tougher U.S. and E.U. sanctions story continued to deter investors,” Andrei Dirgin, head of Alfa-Forex analysis department, said.

The U.S. Congress is to vote on a bill to introduce new sanctions against Russia later on Tuesday. The bill prohibits companies to invest more than U.S. $1 million in a single payment or more than $5 million during the course of a year in construction of the country’s export pipelines, as well as provision of goods, services, technologies and information support for the construction.

The German Foreign Ministry said it is preparing an all-European response to a scandal with alleged supplies of four Siemens turbines to Crimea.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov agreed that the market lacked fresh investment ideas amid deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations and rumors that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may resign.

Dirgin added that the Brent crude price has tested a $49.74 mark in the wake of an OPEC+ ministerial monitoring committee meeting and ahead of the American Petroleum Institute (API)’s U.S. inventories statistics, and is striving to break to above $50.

Silver and gold producer Polymetal International was among the best performers, adding 2.46% to 708.5 rubles after a release of January-June operating results marking a 15% rise in gold production to 389,000 ounces.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.69%	160.22	6.948
Norilsk Nickel	+1.05%	8675	6.838
Gazprom	-0.65%	118.40	2.806
Lukoil	+0.30%	2835	1.600
ALROSA	-1.17%	84.30	952

(59.6572 rubles – U.S. $1)

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