Russian stocks edge down on oil price slide, foreign mkt inertia

MOSCOW, Jun 5 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Monday, following an oil price fall, but the trade volume was low as investors worldwide were preparing for significant events later this week, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.22% to 1,877.69 and the RTS decreased 0.16% to 1,044.34.

“A morning wave of optimism due to an oil price rise on the back of the Qatari crisis went by and trade returned to circles of melancholy,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

After a rise in the morning, Brent plunged below the U.S. $50 per barrel level.

Russia’s Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) grew to 56.3 in May from 56.1 in April, which was good news, Kochetkov said.

Sergei Melnikov, a senior analyst at Forex broker Global FX, said that market participants were inert because many important events will take place later this week. The U.K. General Election, a meeting of the European Central Bank and a speech by former FBI Director James Comey before the U.S. Senate will take place on Thursday.

Kochetkov said that Sistema’s shares rose 4.85% as investors hope for an out-of-court settlement with Rosneft. The revenue of the company decreased only 0.6% in January–March under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which was also a positive factor.

Ilya Frolov, a senior capital market analyst at Promsvyazbank, said that metals producers felt better than the market at large because prices on industrial metals grew and estiamtes of the global Metals and Mining sector improved over the last several sessions.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.55	154.7	7.624
Gazprom	-0.58	119	2.971
Rosneft	+1.33	305	1.496
Norilsk Nickel	+0.74	7887	1.262
Lukoil	+0.02	2734.5	0.877

(56.6876 rubles – U.S. $1)

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