Russian stocks decrease on OPEC deal uncertainty, Italy woes

MOSCOW, Jun 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Thursday on investor wariness ahead of a meeting of OPEC plus non-member deal participants on Friday, and on the news about political troubles in Italy, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell by 0.46% to 2,245.94 and the RTS index decreased by 0.75% to 1,110.79.

“The Russian market tried to continue yesterday’s recovery in the first hours of trade but a slump of oil quotations stopped the speeding bulls. Also, Europe is worrying again about political stability of Italy,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

Italy’s FTSE MIB lost 1.2% on the back of appointment of euro-sceptics to the posts of head of Senate’s finance committees and the budget and finance committees of the lower chamber of parliament, Kochetkov said.

Statements by the participants of the OPEC meeting gave mixed signals, Kochetkov said.

Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said that a possible meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July limited the negative effect of the other factors.

She said that retailers were market leaders.

Kirsanova also said that ALROSA grew as the supervisory board was expected to decide on dividend policy soon.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.85	210.4	13.756
ALROSA	+4.14	98	4.681
Gazprom	-1.83	134.4	3.891
Lukoil	+0.07	4135	2.874
MTS	-1.52	272.9	1.863

(63.6175 rubles – U.S. $1)

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