Russian stocks fall ahead of U.S. Fed’s chairman speech

MOSCOW, Jun 25 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Tuesday as all growth drivers were exhausted, and market participants avoided purchases before a speech by Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) Jerome Powell after the Russian trading session closes, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.31% to 2,753.96, and the RTS Index decreased 0.45% to 1,380.87.

“Market euphoria has almost faded away. A new reason is needed to keep the optimism, and it is to be provided by U.S. Fed Chairman Powell, who will speak on Tuesday,” Andrei Kochetkov, analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

“Besides, there is growing doubt about the ability of the U.S. and China to agree on trade issues in the framework of the G20 summit since the real goal of the government of Donald Trump is return of American manufacturing to the U.S.”

Yaroslav Kabakov, director for strategies at investment company Finam, said, “Since all Fed officials have decided at the last meeting that weak macroeconomic statistics could be the main reason to ease the monetary policy, all forthcoming statements will influence market dynamics strongly.”

Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at Promsvyazbank, said that a decrease of the European markets by up to 0.4% and losses of the U.S. indices in the first hours of the trading session defined the trend in Russia.

Kochetkov said that sales of Russian blue chips hurt the overall market trend.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1	236.7	9.093
Gazprom	-0.12	232.09	4.964
Lukoil	+0.75	5309.5	3.155
Norilsk Nickel	-1.49	14060	2.142
ALROSA	-0.75	88.93	1.370

(62.9095 rubles – U.S. $1)

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