Russian stocks ease on unfavorable environment

MOSCOW, Jan 21 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks eased on Monday due to a slight worsening of the external background as the U.S. celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. Day, while other investors focused on concerns over the Chinese economy and on uncertainty around the Brexit, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.22% to 2,468.25 and the RTS decreased 0.45% to 1,171.09.

Anastasia Sosnova, analyst at investment company Freedom Finance, said that there were no drivers to support growth of the market, so investors focused on Chinese economic statistics.

“The negative mood of the markets may be connected to the news about a slowdown in China’s economic growth and also to new signals about possible problems of the country’s stock markets given the economic slowdown. At the same time, the amount of defaults on corporate bonds in China rose to a record figure in 2018,” Sosnova said.

Investment company Finam’s expert Vasily Oleinik said that no new drivers emerged to support the stock markets.

“The start of the new working week saw a slight worsening of investor mood at the global bourses. The morning set of data on China’s economy has almost completely met all expectations, but investors didn’t see it as a positive factor. To be honest, it is hard to believe that the statistics is true,” Oleinik said.

The U.S. was on holiday, so no one should have expected serious changes in the Russian stock indices, because the European floors were mixed, he added.

Investment company Veles Capital said in a research note that the markets were supported by a January 18 decision of international rating agency Standard & Poor’s to affirm Russia’s long-term rating at BBB- with a positive outlook, and by a slight growth of oil prices, but it was outweighed by trade in Europe, where the majority of bourses were in the red zone because of the Brexit uncertainties.

“The news flow was rather scarce on Monday, and the U.S. was on holiday in addition to that. That is why the market activity was lower than usual,” Andrei Kochetkov, Otkritie Broker’s analyst, said.

Kochetkov also said that the shares of multi-industry holding Sistema gained 4.51% as the company had been consistently coping with redeeming liabilities under a suit that it had lost against oil companies Rosneft and Bashneft.

Prices for precious metals started the week with contraction, and the Russian producers of the metals also lost some positions, Kochetkov added. Polymetal International fell 0.43% and Polyus decreased 0.74%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.61	207.17	11.585
Magnit	-0.29	4140.00	2.666
Gazprom	-0.57	158.30	1.897
Lukoil	+0.13	5200.00	1.456
Rosneft	+0.62	422.30	1.104

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