Russian stocks drop amid US healthcare row, political tensions

MOSCOW, Mar 27 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Monday following a negative global market trend – as the U.S. Congress refused to accept a healthcare reform bill – exacerbated by local political tensions and falling oil prices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.30% to 2,013.16 and the RTS decreased 0.89% to 1,114.66.

“The quotations of risky assets worldwide were mainly pressurized by a refusal by the U.S. Congress to vote for a bill by (President Donald) Trump on repeal of some stipulations of healthcare program Obamacare, which significantly reduces chances that his earlier planned set of economic reforms will make it through. Apart from the foreign factors, the risky asset price on the Russian market is under pressure of rising internal political risks,” Finam analyst Timur Nigmatullin said.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that a failure to reform the U.S. healthcare has made a strong impression on market participants: “In fact, this means that the Congress has reached a bipartisan consensus and is ready to resist Donald Trump’s reforms,” Kochetkov said.

The European markets were decreasing during the day as a terrorist attack in London last week raised the chances that Marine Le Pen will win France’s elections, which is seen as a threat to stability by many investors, he said.

Gleb Zadoya, head of research department at Analitika Online, said that a wave of anti-corruption rallies in Russia over the weekend has not directly affected the stock market so far but an absence of response by the government is a matter of concern because it can result in their repetition.

Kochetkov said that an oil price decline was also an important negative factor for the Russian stock market at large and in particular, for oil and gas securities.

Ilya Frolov, a senior capital market analyst at Promsvyazbank, said that a weakening of the ruble helped the Russian stock market decrease to decelerate in the evening.

Kochetkov said that investors have lost their hopes of higher dividends by electric power companies, which is why the shares of this sector were the market outsiders, he said.

Precious metals producers were better off on the stock market because investors saw the securities as a safe haven.

Frolov said that other metals producers were under a serious pressure.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.11	162.69	5.747
Gazprom	-0.96	128.8	3.714
Rosneft	-1.85	309.8	1.757
Norilsk Nickel	-2.99	8891	1.723
FGC UES	-5.99	0.179	1.488

(57.4247 rubles – U.S. $1)

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