Russian stocks ease as investors wait for sanction news

MOSCOW, Sep 4 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks fell only by a slight margin on Friday in spite of a negative external background as investors were waiting for the news about new anti-Russian sanctions, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.35% to 2,921.55 and the RTS decreased 0.26% to 1,220.01.

“The U.S. indices fell today, losing by up to 3%. Europe looked more confident, but was also in the red. Appetite of global players for the emerging markets is down -- the MSCI Emerging Markets index fell by 0.5%. The commodity floors were still volatile, and the Brent oil price lost more than 2% during the trading session,” Valery Yemelyanov, analyst at Freedom Finance, said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, also said that the background for the Russian market was negative during the day, and Russian stocks switched to contraction in the second half of the day after attempts to grow in the morning.

“The MOEX Russia Index and the RTS index fared well on Friday in spite of global sales, and remained above the psychologically important levels of 2,900 and 1,200. … Correctional sales prevailed at the end of the week on the foreign stock floors, and the short-term potential for contraction of the major indices and oil prices is still not exhausted. The Russian market abstained from the negative trend and froze in expectation of sanction news that may shake the shares and the ruble any moment,” Kozhukhova said.

Yemelyanov also said that the IT shares were among the loss leaders with internet giant Yandex shrinking by 1.96% to 4,821.60 rubles and tech giant Mail.Ru Group falling by 3.00% to 2,200 rubles as the shares are shedding the speculative weight they gained this summer.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.77	220.00	14.537
Yandex	-1.96	4821.60	12.344
Gazprom	-0.43	178.36	7.092
Norilsk Nickel	+0.26	19890.00	5.076
Lukoil	+0.32	4829.50	4.460

(75.4608 rubles – U.S. $1)

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