Russian stocks decrease on official Brexit beginning

MOSCOW, Mar 29 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell on Wednesday despite a neutral external background as the U.K. officially initiated withdrawal from the E.U., analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.43% to 2,023.71 and the RTS decreased 0.06% to 1,124.91.

“Despite positive moods on the oil market, Russia’s MICEX was decreasing. The benchmark fall was to a large extent conditioned by technical factors, and also by fears of how the official start of Brexit will affect the state of global markets,” Forex Club analyst Irina Rogova said.

Finam analyst Timur Nigmatullin said that the external background for the Russian trading session was neutral with the U.S. S&P 500 index demonstrating near zero dynamics, European Stoxx 600 adding less than 0.1%.

“The standstill was mostly due to a forthcoming launch of the formal procedure of Britain’s exit from the E.U. with effects almost unpredictable because of a need to reset the relations of a large number of countries participants,” Nigmatullin said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.27	163.22	4.276
Gazprom	-0.30	128.81	2.041
Rosneft	+2.42	322.20	1.820
Lukoil	+0.20	3061.00	1.429
ALROSA	-2.62	92.00	1.422

(56.9364 rubles – U.S. $1)

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