Russian stocks edge up on US employment data, oil price growth

MOSCOW, Jun 4 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged up on Friday as foreign investors were pleased with the U.S. employment statistics, while the continuous increase of oil prices supported the national market, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 0.05% to 3,807.43 and the RTS increased 0.64% to 1,647.06.

“The main idea of the stock markets at the end of the current week is expectations of the U.S. labor market statistics. Nevertheless, the figures provided by ADP Services yesterday showed rapid improvement of employment, which triggered strengthening of the U.S. dollar and growth of the yield of the U.S. treasuries,” Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said.

The oil prices did not succumb to the general pessimistic mood and continued growing, as lower unemployment means expansion of people’s mobility, he said.

“The MOEX Russia Index and the RTS Index rebounded from their intra-day lows at the end of trade thanks to improvements in the external background,” Veles Capital’s analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The U.S. stock bourses grew at the start of Friday’s trade thanks to the employment statistics, the European stock floors were also in the green zone in the evening, and the oil prices grew following the U.S. dollar, Kozhukhova said.

She also said that the shares of independent gas producer Novatek gained 1.28% to 1,570.80 rubles on the news about the company’s cooperation with firms like Severstal and Gazprom Neft, and high prices for natural gas and oil.

Kochetkov also said that oil company Tatneft slightly underperformed and lost 0.18% to 513.30 rubles as its net profit in January–March of 43.6 billion rubles did not live up to the market’s expectation of 44.3 billion rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+0.52	273.51	14.047
Sberbank	-0.62	310.46	10.797
Lukoil	+0.39	6500.00	9.650
Norilsk Nickel	-1.00	26364.00	5.450
Rosneft	-0.34	557.55	4.700

(73.2636 rubles – U.S. $1)

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