Russian stocks fall, as Fed’s rhetoric scares investors away

MOSCOW, Aug 17 (PRIME) – Overbought Russian stocks were still under pressure on Wednesday from comments by New York Federal Reserve System (Fed) President William Dudley that the U.S. may raise rates in September, and amid falling futures for global indices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.33% to 1,969.19 and the RTS decreased 0.97% to 965.39.

Forex Club analyst Irina Rogova said, “External conditions are negative. Futures for U.S., European and Asian indices are falling further. In general, it is caused by technical factors. For example, American benchmarks were at their multiyear highs.”

“But an additional negative factor was comments of Fed’s representative Dudley who said that the Fed may raise the key rate in September already on the back of recovering labor market and higher salaries.”

She added that although the U.S. regulator is unlikely to raise the key rate next month, investors pulled back from risky assets.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that oil company Bashneft fell 8.17% to 2,876 rubles after the government decided to postpone its privatization.

Veles Capital analyst Alexander Kostyukov said that petrochemical company Nizhnekamskneftekhim decreased 3.78% to 56 rubles after its controlling shareholder said that the company may cut dividends for 2016 or to pay no dividends at all.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said that Quadra Power Generation decreased 6.98% to 0.0033 per common share and went down 13.20% to 0.004 per preferred share after rallying on strong financial results under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) last week.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.25	138.44	5.909
Gazprom	-0.22	137.68	2.492
Bashneft	-8.17	2876.00	2.163
Magnit	-1.25	10400.00	1.819
Lukoil	-0.02	2932.00	1.720

(63.9514 rubles – U.S. $1)

End