Russian stocks fall as IEA report pushes oil prices down

MOSCOW, Sep 13 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks contracted on Tuesday as the International Energy Agency (IEA) has cut its forecast for growth of demand for oil in 2016 and 2017, which significantly hurt oil prices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.76% to 2,004.50 and the RTS decreased 1.55% to 968.53.

The Brent oil price lost 2.243% to U.S. $47.26 per barrel as of 6.22 p.m. Moscow time, according to the ICE exchange.

“Oil lost about 2% compared with yesterday’s closing figure, so it could be perceived as the main reason for sales (of Russian stocks)…The IEA worsened its forecast for growth of demand for this year and next year” by 100,000 barrels per day, so now the agency expects the daily demand for oil to grow by 1.3 million barrels to 96.1 million barrels in 2016 and by 1.2 million barrels to 97.3 million barrels in 2017, Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

The market participants also expect the U.S. oil reserves to grow, which does not support any purchases, Kochetkov added.

The background for the Russian market was also moderately negative, as the European compound stock index STOXX 600 was in the red zone during the day. The U.S. dollar–denominated RTS index also lost more than the MICEX index due to contraction of the ruble’s exchange rate, Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at investment company Finam, said.

The Moscow Exchange lost 3.54% to 122.19 rubles due to toughening of the central bank’s requirements for investors and a possibility of the regulator cutting its key rate, which may have a negative impact on the company’s income, Nigmatullin said.

Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP) fell 6.6% to 4.53 rubles as the shares traded without dividends. NCSP will pay 0.467 rubles per share in dividends for January–June, which accounts for about 9.6% of their price as of closing of the Monday trade, Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.08	149.80	5.435
Gazprom	-0.35	138.45	2.256
Lukoil	-0.26	3037.50	1.319
Rosneft	-0.84	363.90	1.264
Moscow Exchange	-3.54	122.19	1.051

(65.0539 rubles – U.S. $1)

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