Russian stocks fall as Fin Min wants metals, fertilizers tax raise

MOSCOW, Sep 17 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market declined on Thursday as the Finance Ministry was firm in the decision to raise a tax on metals and fertilizer producers, and the mood was reinforced by the anticipation of a meeting of the central bank's board of directors and by a negative dynamics of foreign markets, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.11% to 2,971.74, and the RTS index declined 0.68% to 1,243.29.

"The domestic market was aiming at a decrease from the first minutes of the trade. Besides an external negative background, the shares are pressurized by a plan of the Finance Ministry to raise the mineral extraction tax (MET)," Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said.

Yevgeny Mironyuk, analyst at investment company Freedom Finance, said that global markets reacted with a restraint to optimistic statements by Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) Jerome Powell, in particular, concerning the unemployment outlook for 2020, improving to 7.6%, and the gross domestic product one, improved to a 3.7% decrease.

Mironyuk said that the OPEC plus deal participants meeting was in focus on Thursday and the Brent oil price rose to U.S. $42.5 from $39.5. The oil production fell due to Hurricane Sally slamming into the Gulf of Mexico, which affected the price positively, he said. 

Russian investors were waiting for a meeting between Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and companies producing metals and fertilizers in order to discuss the possible raise of the MET. The investors were also anticipating for a meeting of the board of directors of the central bank, scheduled for Friday, he said.

Kochetkov said that the shares of Tatneft were the market outsiders, falling 2.79% on Thursday because the company is one of the main beneficiaries of incentives on highly-viscous oil production.

Lukoil and Rosneft decreased as well as these companies are receiving incentives for hard-to-recover oil, Kochetkov said. Rosneft decreased 1.72%

He also said that Inter RAO grew 5.7% on a report that the company is interested in assets of Unipro and Enel Russia.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.3	231.75	10.806
Gazprom	+0.68	184.5	8.766
Lukoil	-1.51	4790	7.174
Yandex	-1.53	4566	7.029
Norilsk Nickel	+1.18	19498	6.867

(74.9278 – U.S. $1)

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