Russian stocks edge down following US indices ahead of FOMC meet

MOSCOW, Jan 27 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market slightly fell on Monday following a bearish trend of the main U.S. indices ahead of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, analysts said.

The MICEX index decreased 0.04% to 1,477.67, and the RTS index fell 0.05% to 1,345.90.

“With a start of a new week, Russian stock indices edged down again in line with the world trends. On January 24, the U.S. market closed 2% lower, influenced by pessimistic moods,” Ivan Fomenko, director of Absolut Bank’s trust management department, said in a note.

Worries over further prospects of the global economic growth and expectations of the FOMC meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday pulled the U.S. stocks down, Fomenko said.

The quantitative easing program tapering by U.S. $10 billion has already been taken into account by investors, but in later comments, the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may announce some plans on further steps, Fomenko said.

The U.S.’ Dow Jones index lost 1.96% on January 24, and the S&P 500 index fell 2.09%.

Finam analysts said that the world’s leading indices fell on worse-than-expected macroeconomic data from China, the second largest economy.

“Besides, we saw releases of various data on unstable political and economic situation in Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, and Ukraine, which provoked a significant fall on stock markets in these countries,” Finam analysts said.

The Russian indices did not drop as deep as the U.S. market on Monday, as the fall on the domestic market was softened by gas giant Gazprom’s stocks, which pushed the MICEX index up, Metropol analyst Sergei Filchenkov said.

Gazprom’s growth was attributed to expectations that the company will buy back its shares from the market for $1–2 billion, Filchenkov said. Gazprom’s quotes rose 1.12% at the closure.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+1.12	148.36	10.030
Sberbank	-1.77	97.94	9.307
Magnit	-0.13	8255.00	3.318
Lukoil	+0.48	1966.30	3.279
VTB Bank	-1.21	0.0464	2.217

(34.2600 rubles – U.S. $1)

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