Russian stocks dragged down by falling oil, European bourses

MOSCOW, Sep 25 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged down on Friday as it was pressured by negative dynamics of oil prices and European bourses, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.55% to 2,896.83 and the RTS dropped 2.04% to 1,164.68.

“The Russian stock market demonstrated a decrease on Friday thanks to a mixed foreign background. Local shares were pressured by the energy market situation with the Brent oil futures falling to U.S. $41.7 per barrel and the dynamics of the European benchmarks, which lost up to 1.2% by the evening,” senior analyst at Promsvyazbank Bogdan Zvarich said.

At the same time, the core U.S. indices Dow Jones and S&P500 rose 0.4–0.6%, he added.

Russian gas giant Gazprom fell 2.39% on investors’ wariness that the company’s dividends will be lowered due to larger capital investment in expansion of the nationwide gas transportation system, Zvarich said.

Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) outperformed the market by growing 0.54% after the company’s shareholders approved paying 4.75 rubles per share in dividends for April–June.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-2.39	170.07	14.542
Sberbank	-0.26	227.57	12.981
Yandex	+2.37	4888.4	7.605
Lukoil	+0.01	4563.5	5.062
Norilsk Nickel	+0.3	18836	4.039

(77.1780 rubles – U.S. $1)

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