Russian stocks dive as Gazprom votes against dividends for 2021

MOSCOW, Jun 30 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market demonstrated a steep fall on Thursday with gas giant Gazprom that decided against paying dividends for 2021 being the main influencer, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 7.30% to 2,204.85 and the RTS decreased 4.81% to 1,345.01.

“The Russian stock market finished the trading session with a significant decline as Gazprom had decided to pay no dividends for 2021… All the investors can do is wait for dividend decisions of other energy companies, but the signal from the gas giant is worrying,” Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

Gazprom lost 30.46% on the news.

Sales also continued on external markets in light of fears of the coming global recession, she added. The U.S. and European stock exchanges demonstrated negative dynamics, and the nearest Brent and WTI crude prices fell by around 2.5–3%.

The OPEC+ decided at a Thursday meeting to increase oil production by 648,000 barrels per day in August, and gave not guides for September.

Freedom Finance analysts said that precious metals producers Petropavlovsk and Polymetal also underperformed considerably, losing 6.68% and 7.93%, respectively, on introduction of an embargo on gold imports from Russia by Western states.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-30.46	207	69.716
Sberbank	-5.72	125.2	11.774
Rosneft	-5.71	362.25	3.574
Novatek	+0.49	1024	3.029
Lukoil	-2.74	3905	2.978

(51.1580 rubles – U.S. $1)

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