Russian stocks decrease as tensions near Ukraine escalate

MOSCOW, Jan 18 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market declined on Tuesday as record high oil prices were unable to offset a continuing flow of news on exacerbation of the situation near the Ukrainian borders, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index dropped 6.50% to 3,328.94, and the RTS index decreased 7.29% to 1,367.45.

"The Russian market fell strongly again accompanied by the geopolitical news. First, the stories about evacuation of Russian diplomats from Ukraine appeared in the New York Times, then the news about Russian–Belarusian joint military drills,” Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst for global analysis at Otkritie Research, said.

“Obviously, jitters were only exacerbated, although the first news was denied, and the drills were scheduled long ago."

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that the MOEX Russia Index and the RTS hit new lows since March and April 2020 respectively in the first half of the session. The oil prices reached the peaks seen in 2014, but this was not enough for the market to return to growth.

Kochetkov said that almost all sectors of the local market lost 2% and more. Electric power, metals and mining, finance and consumption were the loss leaders. The IT technologies slumped as VK Group and Yandex were among the five weakest securities of the session in the MOEX Russia Index. The global depositary receipts of VK Group decreased 6.59%, the shares of Yandex 5.56%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-10.39	231	104.439
Gazprom	-8.65	299.47	59.059
Lukoil	-5.59	6151.5	21.548
Norilsk Nickel	-5.35	20652	18.271
Rosneft	-10.56	530	13.641

(76.0404 – U.S. $1)  

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